Hurricane Laura: 14 dead, thousands without power in Louisiana, Texas

Aug. 28 (UPI) -- The death toll one day after Hurricane Laura made landfall in western Louisiana has risen to 14, including four in Texas, local officials said Friday.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said of the 10 who died in his state, five had carbon monoxide poisoning from using gas-powered generators, four were victims of tree falls and one drowned while on a boat.

Texas officials said one person died in Sabine County after a tree hit his mobile home and three died from possible carbon monoxide poisoning in Port Arthur. Another 23 people in Port Arthur were hospitalized after using generators.

Thousands of residents of both states turned to using the generators after losing power during the storm, which made landfall Thursday as a Category 4 storm.

More than 600,000 homes and businesses in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas were without power Friday eventing, Poweroutage.us reported.

Electricity was cut in Laura's path immediately -- and it was still out early Friday for more than 473,000 customers in Louisiana, 110,000 in Texas and 21,000 in Arkansas. At one point, more than 750,000 had no power.

Aerial video has revealed significant damage from Laura's 150-mph winds and flooding brought on by severe storm surge. There were scenes of flattened homes and buildings in and around the landfall point of Cameron, La.

"I was so sick to my stomach," Holly Beach resident Robert Eggert told USA Today. "Everything's gone."

In Lake Charles, La., Mayor Nic Hunter said the city sustained heavy wind damage and returning evacuees found homes and buildings reduced to scraps of wood, sheet metal and insulation, along with hundreds of downed trees and power lines.

"This has turned out for the city of Lake Charles to be a catastrophic wind event," Hunter told The Weather Channel. "I see buildings in downtown Lake Charles that look like Swiss cheese."

Laura blew out windows in the Capitol One Tower in downtown Lake Charles and dislodged the Isle of Capri riverboat casino, sending it into the Interstate 10 bridge over the Calcasieau River.

"It is clear that we did not sustain and suffer the absolute, catastrophic damage that we thought was likely," Edwards said late Thursday. "But we have sustained a tremendous amount of damage. We have thousands and thousands of our fellow citizens whose lives are upside down."

Laura was downgraded Friday to a tropical depression but forecasters said it's still a potent storm, producing heavy rain and potential tornadoes across the region in Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois.

The National Hurricane Center issued tornado warnings through late Friday for parts of the Mid-South and Tennessee Valley regions.