Tornado left two people injured and several homes damaged after sweeping through Lake Charles, Louisiana
By Aya Elamroussi and Joe Sutton, CNN
Several homes in Lake Charles, Louisiana, were damaged Wednesday after a tornado swept through the area that is still recovering from recent disasters.
The tornado’s maximum winds reached 130 miles per hour when it touched down, causing significant structural damage to about a dozen homes and minor damage to others, the National Weather Service in Lake Charles said Wednesday.
At least two people were injured, according to a preliminary damage survey conducted by the NWS.
One Lake Charles resident told CNN affiliate KPLC that she sought shelter in her closet when she heard rumbling noises outside her home.
“Something hit the side of the house while I was in the closet. ( I ) came out, and there’s debris everywhere. And I have a big board through the middle of my ceiling,” Kylie Flesch said.
Another resident, Brad Busse, told the TV station that he also saw “debris flying around” while he was sheltering in his home with his wife and child.
The strong winds knocked down power lines, which caused outages for more than 7,500 Entergy customers, KPLC reported.
The Lake Charles area has suffered back-to-back disasters in recent years. Last year, Hurricane Laura made landfall near Cameron Parish in Louisiana with sustained winds of 150 mph, making it a high-end Category 4 storm.
Laura caused significant damage to buildings in Lake Charles, which sits about 50 miles north of Cameron. Lake Charles was pounded by wind gusts of more than 120 mph for more than an hour overnight — the equivalent of an EF-2 tornado– when Laura hit.
After the tornado landed in Lake Charles on Wednesday, Flesch said she had just recovered from Laura.
“We just replaced basically the whole house,” Flesch told KPLC. “We, literally, just finished up everything, I guess, technically yesterday from damage from Laura. So, here we go again.”
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CNN’s Dakin Andone and Rachel Ramirez contributed to this report.
