Hurricane Laura makes landfall in the US

The western stretch of Interstate 10, which runs across southern Louisiana, is now closed as Hurricane Laura barrels toward the coast.

In preparation for the storm, Gov. John Bel Edwards closed the highway from the Louisiana-Texas border to the Atchafalaya Basin.

This portion of the highway includes the Calcasieu River Bridge, which was given a sufficiency rating of 6.6 out of 100 by the National Bridge Inventory upon its most recent assessment.

The I-10 bridge, built in 1952, will face hurricane-force winds and a strong storm surge Wednesday night into Thursday morning, as Hurricane Laura bears down on the region.

The bridge's structural evaluation was found to be "Basically intolerable requiring high priority of corrective action" by the inventory, which is a part of the Federal Highway Administration. The bridge's status was determined to be "structurally deficient."

For context: In 2007, the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge collapsed during rush hour, killing 13 people. It had previously received a sufficiency rating of 50 out of 100.

From midnight last night to midnight tonight, Laura has rapidly intensified from a Category 1 without an eye to a category 4 hurricane with a well-defined eye.

The eye-wall, the area around the eye, is the strongest portion of a hurricane. 

Here's what that 24-hour intensification looked like on satellite:

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards tonight warned residents to stay off the roads as the state prepares for Hurricane Laura to make landfall.

Hurricane Laura is expected to bring significant flooding and storm surges into Louisiana as it comes ashore. 

Calcasieu Parish, where the city of Lake Charles is located, has about 100,000 residents who are at risk of possible flooding, parish spokesman Tom Hoefer told CNN. 

Residents who reside below I-10 in the parish are at higher risk of flooding, Hoefer said. 

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said earlier tonight that the state is closing a section of I-10, the east-west interstate that connects much of the Gulf Coast.

Vice President Mike Pence spoke briefly about the hurricane tonight during his remarks at the Republican National Convention.

"This is a serious storm, and we urge all those in the affected areas to heed state and local authorities. Stay safe, and know that we’ll be with you every step of the way to support, rescue, response, and recover in the days and weeks ahead. That’s what Americans do.”

Watch:

Hurricane Laura is now closing in on the Northwest Gulf Coast, according to the National Hurricane Center’s updated advisory.

Here's the latest:

Storm surge warnings, hurricane warnings and tropical storm warnings remain in place along the coast and inland, with the advisory warning, "This is a life-threatening situation."

"All preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion in the next few hours," the warning read.

As the outer bands of Hurricane Laura start to impact both Louisiana and Texas, power outages have already begun. 

According to PowerOutage.US, there are over 13,000 customers without electricity in the states -- 8,912 in Texas and 4,115 in Louisiana.

Those numbers are expected to increase throughout the night and early morning.

US Customs and Border Protection sent helicopters to the Gulf Coast earlier today to prepare for a potential recovery effort after Hurricane Laura blows through.

“Air and Marine Operations teams are staging aircraft for resupply, damage assessment, and rescue missions,” the agency said in a press release.

Two Black Hawk helicopters capable of hoist rescues arrived in Louisiana alongside a fixed-wing plane, and the agency says more aircraft are on the way.

Incident commanders are now on the ground in Houston, Texas, and Hammond, Louisiana. Field Operations and Border Patrol agents have also been pre-deployed to provide relief.

Hurricane Laura is only seven miles per hour away from becoming a Category 5 storm -- and is already stronger than Hurricane Katrina, according to CNN meteorologist Tom Sater.

"It's now in the top 10 of the greatest hurricanes to ever make landfall in the continental US," Sater said. "This is going to really make an impact, and not just to the coastline, but well inland."

Sater warned the hurricane's winds -- measuring up to 150 miles per hour -- could destroy homes, buildings, hospitals, cut off power and damage businesses. Power outages could stretch from Houston all the way north through Little Rock, Arkansas, in the coming days.

Parts of the coast are already seeing storm surges of four feet, and that could increase to 15 or 20 feet when the storm makes landfall -- about as high as the top of a second-story building, Sater said.

Watch: