Video: Hurricane Delta leaves devastation in its wake, clean up begins

Hurricane Delta may have weakened and worst may have been over but it has left devastation in its wake. Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected as they are left with no electricity. Those who faced the worst of Hurricane Laura have had to face Delta as well. Trees, electricity poles have been uprooted, many have been left homeless while others are trying to save what they can from their damaged homes.

This video, shot from a drone, gives us a sense of the devastation.

However, the worst is over and it's now time to rebuild.

Delta made landfall near the town of Creole in Louisiana early Friday evening (local time) as a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, packing sustained winds of 100 miles per hour. However, it weakened and moved northeast.

The storm weakened to a tropical depression as it moved inland to western Mississippi, according to the National Hurricane Center, but still carried heavy rains.

"Even if it wasn't quite as powerful as Hurricane Laura, it was much bigger," Governor John Bel Edwards told a briefing in Baton Rouge.

Some 3,000 National Guard troops had been called up to distribute relief supplies, clear roads, maintain security and conduct search and rescue operations, the governor said.

Sylvia Pastrano, 65, said the roof of her Lake Charles, Louisiana home leaked from Delta's rains after being initially damaged by Laura. She positioned three trash cans over her bed to catch the water.

"We were debating whether to leave or not but my husband has got orthopedic issues and I do too and we're just too exhausted to even get up and evacuate," Pastrano said. "Last night it was terrifying, the whistling and whistling."

Thousands without power

No deaths have so far been linked to Hurricane Delta, but Louisiana Governor said that in such situations, deaths may also occur in the aftermath of the storm during clean up operations.

Governor Edwards said that about 600,000 people were without electricity.

But restoration is much faster than it was after Hurricane Laura as Hurricane Delta's winds were not as powerful.

Delta brought widespread flooding of streets and riverbanks, mostly in southwestern Louisiana, tracking the path of destruction left by Laura but causing damage over a larger swath of the Gulf Coast.

"Even if it wasn't quite as powerful as Hurricane Laura, it was much bigger," Governor John Bel Edwards told a briefing in Baton Rouge.

As Delta made its way over the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, energy companies cut back U.S. oil production by about 92%, or 1.7 million barrels per day - the most since 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

While the storm is expected to continue weakening, it is forecast to bring rain though Tennessee, Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley through early next week.

Delta was the tenth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season to make U.S. landfall this year, eclipsing a record dating to 1916.

(With Reuters input)