CAMERON PARISH, La. — At least 150 people refused to evacuate a coastal Louisiana parish that could be covered by ocean water as Hurricane Laura makes landfall, officials said.
"They’re thinking Cameron Parish is going to look like an extension of the Gulf of Mexico for a couple of days.”
Officers went door-to-door in Cameron Parish urging the roughly 7,000 residents to get out before Laura struck, and they all used social media and phone calls to warn people of the danger.
But Ashley Buller, assistant director of the parish Office of Emergency Preparedness, said officials knew of about 150 people who decided to stay put in structures ranging from seemingly safe elevated homes to recreational vehicles, which could easily be swept away by rushing storm surge.
“It’s a very sad situation,” Buller said in a telephone interview from Lake Charles, where parish officials relocated from an office closer to the coast in Cameron. “We did everything we could to encourage them to leave.”
Forecasters said Gulf waters could rise 20 feet along the coast of the low-lying parish without adding the height of waves, meaning the entire parish could be inundated.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said: “They’re thinking Cameron Parish is going to look like an extension of the Gulf of Mexico for a couple of days.”