Louisiana Gov. calls inbound storms 'one-two punch'

Lousiana Gov. John Bel Edwards called the two incoming tropical storms expected to make landfall in Louisiana a "one-two punch."

"We're going to get basically a right hook from Marco and then a left hook from from Laura," he said at a briefing Sunday evening.

Hurricane Marco is heading across the Gulf of Mexico on a path toward the Louisiana coast, and Tropical Storm Laura battered the Dominican Republic and Haiti and has moved over eastern Cuba.

It follows a path likely to take it to the same part of the U.S. coast, also as a potential hurricane.

Laura killed at least seven people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

It appears the storms will not be hurricanes simultaneously — something that researchers say has never happened in the Gulf of Mexico at least since records began being kept in 1900.

The National Hurricane Center says Marco was about 240 miles (390 kilometers) south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River late Sunday afternoon.

It had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph). The center warns of life-threatening storm surges and hurricane-force winds along the Gulf Coast.