Delta sends debris flying in southwest Louisiana

LAKE ARTHUR, La. — Hurricane Delta’s winds are so strong they are pulling away shingles from L’Banca Albergo Hotel, an eight-room boutique hotel in the Louisiana town of Lake Arthur.

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“I probably don’t have a shingle left on the top of this hotel,” said owner Roberta Palermo. She said the electricity was out and, across the street, she could see pieces of metal coming off the roof of a 100-year-old building. Unsecured trash cans were flying around on the streets.

Palermo is a long-time Louisiana resident who has grown up with hurricanes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden one out. I don’t think I’ve ever been in one like this,” she said. “I think my building is pretty safe but it’s intense, for sure.”

One of her guests was Johnny Weaver, a meteorology student from San Francisco State University. He was living at home in Tampa, Florida, while studying online and decided to travel to the region to see and study the storm firsthand.

“There is a lot of power lines down all over the place, there’s … really deep water in certain spots,” he said from the hotel’s front porch, adding, ‘’there is just shingles flying everywhere.”

According to the National Hurricane Center, the storm made landfall at 6 p.m. CT near Creole with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph.