Hurricane Laura causes a river in Texas to change direction for 12 hours

When Hurricane Laura hit the coast near the Texas-Louisiana border last week, gusts of winds of up to 150 mph (241 km per hour) caused one river to flow backwards for 12 hours. Writes about it New York Post.

Photo: Shutterstock

Laura flew ashore in a Category 4 storm, which Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has called the most powerful hurricane to hit the state.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said gusty winds carried so much water that the Nechez River in Texas changed course.

As the outer belts of Laura brought heavy rain to the coast, the Nechez River reached a flow rate of about 15 cubic feet (000 cubic meters) per second immediately after the storm hit the shore.

But after the hurricane swept across Cameron, Louisiana, east of Beaumont, Texas, all the water pushed ashore caused the Nechez River to slow down and then reverse flow.

The river then reached a flow rate of 7600 cubic feet (215 cubic meters) per second in the opposite direction.

“This filled an Olympic-sized swimming pool in approximately 12 seconds,” the USGS noted.

After about 12 hours, the Nechez River returned to its normal course towards Lake Sabin.

“This is not the first time we have observed a rip current in the Neches River,” USGS said. “This happened in 2008 when Hurricane Ike made landfall.”

On the subject: 15 years after the disaster: why hurricane Katrina was the most destructive in US history

In 2008, the results were described as “much more impressive”, with the river flowing in the opposite direction at about 30 cubic feet (000 cubic meters) per second up a normal course, enough to fill an Olympic-size pool in about three seconds.

A similar Laura effect was also reported on the Mississippi River, where barges had to contend with tides as they drifted down the river due to gusty winds that pushed the water in the opposite direction.

On Saturday, August 29, the death toll from a Category 4 hurricane in the United States rose to 16, with more than half of them killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from unsafe generator use.

The latest deaths include an 80-year-old woman and an 84-year-old man who died from this type of poisoning.

US President Donald Trump visited Louisiana and Texas on August 29.

In Lake Charles, a city of 80 residents, Mayor Nick Hunter said the National Guard would begin distributing tarps to residents so that they could cover damaged roofs until they were repaired.

Hundreds of thousands of people were left without electricity in the aftermath of the hurricane, of which 354 customers in Louisiana and 903 in Texas remain in the dark, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks the power outage.

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