The National Hurricane Center said the storm, which intensified rapidly Wednesday before plowing into land, came ashore at 1 a.m.
"Potentially catastrophic impacts will continue," forecasters said.
Winds gusted above hurricane force to 127 mph while Laura's northern eyewall moved onshore over Cameron Parish. Forecasters said even stronger winds were possible that could rip apart buildings, level trees and toss vehicles like toys.
With the storm landing farther east, the NHC adjusted several warnings:
- Tropical Storm Warning southwest of San Luis Pass was discontinued.
- Hurricane Warning from High Island westward to San Luis Pass has been replaced with a Tropical Storm Warning.
Laura, which has been observed as a fast-moving hurricane, is expected to move northward and then northeastward.
Not everyone evacuated the areas of coastal Texas and Louisiana, despite authorities urging people to flee the coming storm.
SEE ALSO: Only road out of Bolivar covered in rocks by Laura's waves
Authorities shut down I-10 to traffic as the massive storm closed in Wednesday night. Eastbound lanes are closed at the Texas/Louisiana state line. I-10 westbound lanes are closed west of the Atchafalaya basin.
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The storm grew nearly 87% in power in just 24 hours to a size the National Hurricane Center called "extremely dangerous." Drawing energy from the warm Gulf of Mexico, the system was on track to arrive during high tide late Wednesday or early Thursday as the most powerful hurricane to strike the U.S. so far this year.
"It looks like it's in full beast mode, which is not what you want to see if you're in its way," University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said.
RELATED: Put your Social Security number and next of kin in your pocket, residents warned
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards fretted that the dire predictions were not resonating despite authorities putting more than 500,000 coastal residents under mandatory evacuation orders.
RELATED: Cattle driven to higher ground to avoid Laura's storm surge in Chambers County
In Lake Charles, Louisiana, National Guard members drove school buses around neighborhoods, offering to pick up families. Across the state line in Port Arthur, Texas, few stragglers boarded evacuation buses, and city officials announced that two C-130 transport planes offered the last chance to leave.
Abbott warned that people who fail to get out of harm's way could be cut off from help long after the storm hits.
SEE ALSO: Gov. Abbott adds 3 more Texas counties to disaster declaration
A Category 4 hurricane can cause damage so catastrophic that power outages may last for months in places, and wide areas could be uninhabitable for weeks or months. The threat of such devastation posed a new disaster-relief challenge for a government already straining to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. Among the parts of Louisiana that were under evacuation orders were areas turning up high rates of positive COVID-19 tests.
On Twitter, President Donald Trump also urged coastal residents to heed local officials.
For some, the decision to leave home left them with no place to stay. Wary of opening mass shelters during a pandemic, Texas officials instead put evacuees in hotels, but Austin stopped taking arrivals before dawn because officials said they ran out of rooms. Other evacuees called the state's 211 information line and were directed to Ennis, outside Dallas, only to be told after driving hundreds of miles that there were no hotels available or vouchers.
Taniquia Ned and her sisters showed up without money to rent a room, saying the family had burned through its savings after losing jobs because of the coronavirus. "The COVID-19 is just totally wiping us out," said Shalonda Joseph, 43, a teacher in Port Arthur.
Edwards lamented that the impending storm meant suspension of community testing for COVID-19 at a crucial time - as elementary and secondary schools in Louisiana are opening and students are returning to college campuses. "We're basically going to be blind for this week," Edwards said, referring to the lack of testing.
Forecasters said storm surge topped by waves could submerge entire towns. Earlier on Wednesday, water was already rising in the small Louisiana community of Holly Beach in the imperiled Cameron Parish, which forecasters have warned could become part of the Gulf of Mexico after the storm comes ashore.
Laura is expected to cause widespread flash flooding in states far from the coast. Flood watches were issued for much of Arkansas, and forecasters said heavy rainfall could arrive by Friday in parts of Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky. Laura is so powerful that it's expected to become a tropical storm again once it reaches the Atlantic Ocean, potentially threatening the Northeast.
Becky Clements, 56, evacuated from Lake Charles after hearing that it could take a direct hit. She and her family found an AirBnb hundreds of miles inland. Almost 15 years have passed since Hurricane Rita destroyed the city.
"The devastation afterward in our town and that whole corner of the state was just awful," Clements recalled. "Whole communities were washed away, never to exist again. ... So knowing how devastating the storms are, there was no way we were going to stay for this."
The church educator said she fears for her office, which is in a trailer following recent construction.
"I very much anticipate that my office will be gone when I get back. It will be scattered throughout that field."
The hurricane threatens a center of the U.S. energy industry. The government said 84% of Gulf oil production and an estimated 61% of natural gas production were shut down. Nearly 300 platforms have been evacuated. Consumers are unlikely to see big price hikes however, because the pandemic has decimated demand for fuel.
Laura closed in on the U.S. after killing nearly two dozen people on the island of Hispaniola, including 20 in Haiti and three in the Dominican Republic, where it knocked out power and caused intense flooding.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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