Axios

A rare relief in the 2020 grind: The worst-case scenario hasn't yet come to pass with Hurricane Laura.

The state of play: The storm surge in Louisiana was 9 to 10 feet vs. the possibility of 20, and wind damage is easier to repair than massive flooding.

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. 

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar declared a public health emergency in California Wednesday, as hundreds of fires raze over 1.4 million acres in a natural disaster that's seen over 100,000 people placed on evacuation orders.

The big picture: At least seven deaths have been reported and dozens of properties razed amid dismal air quality. The fires have brought another crisis to a state reporting the most coronavirus infections in the country.

Texas and Louisiana are in grave peril overnight from the landfall of Hurricane Laura, an "extremely dangerous" and strengthening Category 4 storm — which is expected to bring "catastrophic" winds, storm surges and flash flooding.

Details: Laura's eyewall — the most powerful part of a hurricane — was moving onshore over southwestern Louisiana, the National Hurricane Center said just after midnight ET.

The population density of the Texas-Louisiana coastal region where Hurricane Laura is set to make landfall as a Category 4 storm has increased significantly over the past 40 years.

Why it matters: The damage a storm can do is a function not just of its sheer strength, but the number of people in its path. As more people live in coastal regions, we will get an increasingly "expanded bull's-eye" of hurricane risks.

Evacuation orders were issued Tuesday for over 385,000 people in the Texas cities of Port Arthur, Galveston and Beaumont and for 200,000 others in another 200,000 in Calcasieu Parish, southwest Louisiana, ahead of Hurricane Laura's expected arrival this week, per AP.

Why it matters: It's the largest evacuation to take place in the U.S. during the pandemic and comes as the U.S. marks the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Laura was strengthening over the central Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday night and was expected to make landfall in the U.S. as a Category 3 storm.