Evacuations Begin as US Gulf Coast Prepares for Unprecedented Destruction

Perhaps it’s just our way of coping with the morbid realities around us, but Americans are growing more cynical by the minute in 2020.

This isn’t all that surprising, as this year has been a true test of our mettle.  We’ve been forced to deal with racial unrest, an ugly presidential election, murder hornets, and more – all under the heavy, morose blanket of a global pandemic that has killed 170,000+ Americans.  It’s enough to drive some of us mad, and that has been proven true time and again.

Now, as if to add some rotten icing to this already awful cake, the Gulf Coast of the United States is preparing for something not seen in several lifetimes:  Dueling hurricanes set to make landfall within hours of one another. 

The Gulf Coast braced Sunday for a potentially devastating hit from twin hurricanes as two dangerous storms swirled toward the U.S from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Officials feared a history-making onslaught of life-threatening winds and flooding along the coast, stretching from Texas to Alabama.

A storm dubbed Marco grew into a hurricane Sunday as it churned up the Gulf of Mexico toward Louisiana. But, Marco’s intensity was fluctuating, forecasters said, and the system was downgraded to a tropical storm Sunday night.

Another potential hurricane, Tropical Storm Laura, lashed the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and was tracking toward the same region of the U.S. coast, carrying the risk of growing into a far more powerful storm.

Experts said computer models show Laura could make landfall with winds exceeding 110 mph (177 kph), and rain bands from both storms could bring a combined total of 2 feet (0.6 meters) of rain to parts of Louisiana and several feet of potentially deadly storm surge.

The major concern here is that the storm surge from Marco will not have receded by the time Laura threatens the coast, amplifying the impact of the potentially deadly storms.