2pm (1pm CDT) update: 140mph, 952mb. Solid Cat4 storm now. If you live in the Lake Charles and Port Arthur area, you should be long gone now. If not, leave now.
Also, in those same areas, the surge you are seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg. Latest projects are the surge may move inland as much as 30 miles.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/inundationdb/storm/Laura.html
Or bring beer and hang in my back yard
I’m from Bridge City as well (95 graduate).
Ike was devastating to BC. 12 years later it bounced back but I hate the town could go through that again. My house flooded in Ike with 4.5’ of water. I sold it as is and moved to Mauriceville. My parents, grandmother, aunt and cousins still live there though
Ok, we went and saw the WW2 museum! Outstanding!!! My teenagers spent 4hours in a museum and weren’t ready to leave. That’s a record right?
Thanks for the suggestion!
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The Pacific War museum is truly great. The LBJ state park and historical center in Stonewall is fun and interesting as well. It’s a nice drive, the grounds and historical cabins are interesting. They have some buffaloes.
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Yep, the addition of the Pacific War section made it a great museum.
My dad was born and raised in Port Arthur, but I do not have family left there now.
My cousin in Beaumont evacuated to Houston, and he was the last of my family in the Golden Triangle to not have gotten out of Dodge yet.
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My grandmother was born and raised in Port Arthur too. When I lived in Beaumont I’d head down there a few times to figure out where she lived and just try to catch the vibe of what to me was a fascinating gulf community with a rich history. I also had a good time at the Port Arthur Mardi Gras party. I am fearful for what is going to happen to that town.
Welp. R.I.P.
This is so sad and a constant issue for emergency management. Some people just will not respond to direction, suggestion, logic, science, rationale or government. We see it with the pandemic and We see it with a meteorological event like this.
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Both of my parents were born and raised in adjacent Groves, and my grandmother lived there for the better part of seven decades, so I spent plenty of time in all of those towns while visiting her.
My dad said that he and his cousin used to ride their bikes up the Rainbow Bridge, climb over the edge and crawl around on the maintenance catwalks under the roadway. I’m lucky to exist.
My dad’s father worked for Texaco and was transferred to Port Arthur sometime before my dad was born there in 1919. Dad graduated from TJ and escaped to UT and went back only for visits. My family there was my grandfather and an aunt and her husband, but all were deceased by the early to mid 1970s. That was a miserable place to visit in the summer-hot, humid, and mosquitoes the size of P51s.
Don’t forget about the smell from the refineries.
ETA: I enjoyed growing up in SE Texas. Many things I miss, some I don’t. All my close relatives moved or paased away so I haven’t been back in years.
Btw my grandfather worked for Texaco in PA too.
My dad shared a 3-bed 1-bath house with my grandmother and my five aunts… with no A/C until he was in high school in the mid-1960s. Misery is a good word for that.
Aside from the heat and the mosquitoes, the thing I always associate with that area is the smell. The rotten-egg smell of petroleum always hit you in the car about halfway between I-10 and Port Arthur.
Small world. I had forgotten the smell, but y’all are right.
That’s the smell of success.
When I lived in Beaumont I could always tell which way the wind was blowing as soon as I stepped out of my apartment. If it was from the south, I’d smell the refineries. If it was from the north, it was the paper mills.
I preferred the refineries.
When I first moved to Texas, Pasadena no less, it was on a weekend. Everything was fine. When I woke up Monday morning and stepped out, took one breath, and immediately had to go back in the house and vomit.
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