"We prepared just like it was coming right at us."
Hurricane Laura's devastation spared Morgan City as it rolled through southwest Louisiana early Thursday morning, WBRZ reports.
"We handled some 30-39 mph winds, not much rain. We have the river rising right now, but well within our capabilities," says Morgan City Mayor Boo Grizzaffi. "Had some power outages south of the railroad tracks. They went out around 7 this morning, they were back on at 8:12 and we have some isolated issues, one house here, one house there."
One outage caused by a power transformer that blew up as tropical storm weather moved through the area. Laura comes just a little over a year after Tropical Storm Barry brought trees down onto homes in Morgan City, with residents out of power for three days.
The punch from Laura wasn't as bad as once thought.
"At first we were expecting somewhere in the 50 to 74 mph winds, and that would have caused bigtime problems with our utility system," the mayor says.
Debris was limited to a few downed trees and branches, with no reports of major damage to homes in the citiy, and no localized or storm surge flooding.
The mayor says the city's flood wall protects it from most flooding.
"It just didn't come, and we're grateful for that," Grizzaffi says.
