Weather

About 1,500 residents of long-term care facilities in Texas have been evacuated as a powerful Hurricane Laura nears its coastline.

Nasty hurricanes that cause billions of dollars in damage are hitting more often.

A timelapse shows Texans evacuating ahead of Hurricane Laura.

Storm surge from Laura could reach up to 30 miles inland, say forecasters

More than 385,000 residents were told to flee the Texas cities of Beaumont, Galveston and Port Arthur, and another 200,000 were ordered to leave low-lying Calcasieu Parish in southwestern Louisiana, where forecasters said as much as 13 feet (3.96 meters) of storm surge topped by waves could submerge whole communities.

The periodical is predicting “cold and snowy conditions in the north, drought in the west, and everything crazy in between.”

Laura became a hurricane on Tuesday morning as it entered the warm and deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, gathering strength on a path to hit the U.S. coastline early Thursday as a major hurricane that could unleash a surge of seawater higher than a basketball hoop and swamp entire towns.