Laura leaves debris, power outages in her wake

Hurricane Laura's high winds and heavy rains have left the Avoyelles area, leaving a lot of downed trees and power outages. As of 3 p.m., power outage maps for the three utility companies serving the parish were showing over 9,000 utility customers still without power. Earlier Thursday morning there were reports of 16,000 customers without power.

Laura hit Cameron Parish at 1 a.m. Thursday with sustained winds of 150 mph winds, just short of the 157 mph needed to become a Category 5 storm. It was the srongest storm to hit Louisiana since 1856, surpassing in power the deadly Katrina that hit the state on Aug. 29, 2005. Laura had already killed at least 23 people in the Caribbean before entering the Gulf. Latest reports indicate four people were killed by falling trees as the hurricane ripped up the western side of the state.

In Avoyelles, one person was injured in Moreauville when a tree fell on their house.

Avoyelles Emergency Preparedness Director Joey Frank said there were many trees and limbs down around the parish, but widespread power outages seemed to be the biggest effect.

Sheds and other outbuildings in parish communities were flattened and carried away by winds that included gusts estimated at 60 mph as the hurricane passed west of the parish around 7 a.m.

Lake Charles was battered with high winds and gusts of up to 130 mph winds for over an hour, flipping vehicles and inflicting significant wind damage. Social media posts showed about half of the windows of a Lake Charles high rise were blown out .

One of the storm's victims was the Lake Charles weather radar system, which was destroyed even though it was built to withstand winds of 134 mph.

At 3 p.m. Laura was in southern Arkansas traveling north at 17 mph with sustained winds of 63 mph and gusts of up to 75 mph.