HURRICANE LAURA ON THE RAMPAGE

HURRICANE LAURA ON THE RAMPAGE

With warnings of catastrophic impacts, the extremely dangerous Hurricane Laura slammed into Louisiana on Thursday with winds of 150mph and torrential rainfall.

Government officials and weather experts were anticipating an "unsurvivable" storm surge, extreme winds and floods from the massive storm.

Early damage estimates were already being calculated into the millions of dollars.

Laura swirled east of Cayman as a tropical storm on Monday whipping up high winds and causing heavy rains resulting in some flooding.

It had already pounded Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica causing severe flooding before hitting parts of Cuba on its way through the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana.

Before it smashed into that state as a Category Four Hurricane, Louisiana had already been impacted by conditions from Tropical Storm Marco which was downgraded from a hurricane just days before.

The US National Hurricane Center was warning of "unsurvivable" storm surges of up to 15 feet which risked overwhelming parts of the Gulf Coast.

The resulting flooding was a major concern with flood waters expected to remain at dangerous levels for days.

The storm had intensified rapidly into a Category 4 hurricane before slamming into the Gulf Coast near the Louisiana-Texas border.

Although Laura was downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane after it made landfall, it was still considered as extremely dangerous.

The storm surge was expected to penetrate up to 40 miles inland and flood waters were not expected fully recede for several days.

The National Hurricane Center said the eyewall of Hurricane Laura will continue to move inland across southwestern Louisiana with continuing catastrophic storm surge, extreme winds and flash flooding.

Dangerous hurricane Laura was forecast to cut a swathe of destruction for up to 40 miles inland before swerving east across several states and heading out sea again in the vicinity of Delaware possibly by Sunday.