Hurricane Laura made landfall overnight near Cameron, Louisiana, bringing "catastrophic storm surge, extreme winds and flash flooding" to portions of the state, the National Hurricane Center said early Thursday.

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

The storm is now moving north, bringing damaging winds and flooding rainfall to central and northern Louisiana, according to forecasters.

As of mid-Thursday morning, the storm was weakening, with winds near 75 mph. The hurricane is expected to become a tropical storm within the next few hours before becoming a tropical depression, according to the hurricane center.

Laura slammed the Lake Charles and Westlake Louisiana area.

As daylight arrived aerials began to show the damage...

Houses and business with roofs torn off, windows blown out, and trees down.

More than 600,000 homes and businesses were without power in Texas and Louisiana, according to the website PowerOutage.Us, which tracks utility reports.

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