More than 350,000 people have been ordered to leave East Texas on Tuesday as Tropical Storm Laura was upgraded to a hurricane. The Category 1 hurricane is projected to cause devastating damage along the U.S. Gulf Coast on Wednesday and Thursday. The governors of Texas and Louisiana declared disasters in advance of the hurricane. Officials in Texas’ Orange County and Jefferson County ordered residents to leave by 6 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. Tuesday respectively, while residents in the barrier island city of Galveston were ordered to leave by 6 p.m. Evacuations were also ordered in several Louisiana communities. Tropical Storm Laura killed at least 11 people in the Caribbean. “The good news and the bad news is that Laura is still somewhat unpredictable,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said on Monday.
