ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>COOPER: Just about the top of the hour. I'm Anderson Cooper. Right now, a monster hurricane is heading for a direct hit on Louisiana and Texas. Hurricane Laura is gaining strength as it tears through the Gulf of Mexico. It's now a category 4 hurricane. Landfall is expected tonight with winds well over 125 miles per hour and 10 to 20-feet of storm surge. Some of the flooding is already starting on the coast but it is just beginning. Evacuations have been ordered in both Louisiana and Texas as they brace for more severe flooding and possible tornados. Jennifer Gray is in the CNN Severe Weather Center. So, let's talk about where we are now and what is coming with this storm?</s>JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: This storm, category four, at 2:00 p.m. This could strengthen even more. In fact, it's expected to strengthen even more. It has time to strengthen to a strong category 4 or possibly a category 5 before making landfall. This is a monster storm and one that should be taken seriously. This is going to make landfall somewhere on the southwest Louisiana/southeast Texas coast tonight. And we're already starting to see those outer bands come ashore. It's moving to the northwest at 16 miles per hour. We're waiting on that turn to the north because that's what the National Hurricane Center is banking on to make the landfall right there at the border.
Hurricane Laura Now an Extremely Dangerous Cat 4 Storm.