A wobble, luck and preparations lessened Laura's devastation

LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — Hurricane Laura was a monster storm that could have, even should have, wreaked much more destruction than it did, except for a few lucky breaks and some smart thinking by Gulf Coast residents, experts say.

Just before striking Louisiana, Laura wobbled. It wasn’t much, maybe 15 miles (24 kilometers) for a Category 4 storm that was nearly the width of two states. But it was enough to move the worst of the storm surge east of Lake Charles and into a far less populated area.

And even before that, Laura threaded a needle between well-populated New Orleans, Port Arthur and Houston and came ashore in Cameron Parish, which is the second least-populated county along the coast. The population of the average Atlantic and Gulf Coast county is 322,000 people. Cameron Parish has less than 7,000.

Before Laura struck, local governments and residents took the right steps and got out of harm’s way for the most part, a veteran New Orleans disaster expert said.

The storm was still devastating, but not quite as catastrophic as it might have been.

“It was really, really bad instead of apocalyptic,” Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said.

Lauren Sylvester heeded the mandatory evacuation, leaving her townhouse in Lake Charles on Wednesday to stay with her mom in New Iberia. Between the evacuation order and the storm surge projections, she didn’t want to take a risk.

"On the TV, the picture kept getting worse and worse. They said it was going to be 9 feet and above. It was freaking me out so much,” Sylvester said Friday. “I didn’t want to be stuck in my attic with no way to get out.”

Her home was right in the “red zone” of 9 feet (2.7 meters) of flooding, but “it didn't happen,” she said.

She came home to some...