Hurricane Laura makes landfall in Louisiana as "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm

Hurricane Laura made landfall near Cameron, southwestern Louisiana, early Thursday as an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm. The National Hurricane Center warned to expect "catastrophic" extreme winds, flash-flooding and "unsurvivable" storm surges.

What's happening: The storm was packing winds of 150 mph — 7 mph short of a Category 5 hurricane — when it began pummeling the region near the Texas border — knocking out power to almost 160,000 customers in Louisiana and almost 32,000 others in Texas, per PowerOutage.US. 

The big picture: Laura is the one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the U.S. and the first to make landfall as a Category 4 since Hurricane Harvey devastated the Gulf Coast in 2017.

• Hundreds of thousands of people in Texas and Louisiana were ordered to evacuate ahead of the arrival of Laura, which killed at least 23 people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic when it swept over the Caribbean as a tropical storm earlier this week.

What they're saying: Panews.com reports Thurman Bartie, mayor of Port Arthur, Texas, warned residents considering staying behind after he issued a mandatory evacuation order, "Know that it's just you and God."

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.