Hurricane Laura girl killed, 14-year-old girl dies after tree falls on family's home

 Hurricane Laura girl killed, 14-year-old girl dies after tree falls on family's home.

Gov. John Bel Edwards said he's received report of the first fatality from Hurricane Laura in Louisiana, a 14-year-old girl who died when a tree fell on her home in Vernon.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is crediting the evacuations of thousands of people for preventing deaths in Texas. Edwards says they are only beginning to assess the damage.

Hurricane Laura made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana as a ferocious Category 4 monster with 150 mph winds early Thursday, swamping low-lying coast with ocean water that forecasters said could be 20 feet deep and unsurvivable.

The National Hurricane Center said the storm came ashore at 1 a.m.

Both governors say the storm surge appears to have been not as bad as they feared.

Abbott said the hurricane's storm surge hit the east Texas communities of Port Arthur, Beaumont and Orange "pretty hard" overnight, weakening to a Category 2. The eye of the hurricane has continued to move about 100 miles north along the Texas-Louisiana state line.

Winds gusted above hurricane force to 127 mph while Laura's northern eyewall moved onshore over Cameron Parish. Winds ripped apart buildings and leveled trees throughout the region.