In a 24-hour period, Baton Rouge had as much as 11 inches while one weather observer reported more than 17 inches in Livingston.
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The Livingston Parish 911 Communications Center in Louisiana was forced to close due to flooding.
In Baker, just north of Baton Rouge, residents were rescued by boats or waded through waist-deep, water to reach dry ground.
One of the worries, the governor said, is that as the rain lessens in the next several hours, people will become complacent and feel too at ease in areas where waters may still be rising for several days, getting in cars in areas that could still be risky.
On Saturday, the body of a woman was recovered from the Tickfaw River in St. Helena Parish, northeast of Baton Rouge near the MS border.
“I just kept picking and hitting and prying until I could get a hole big enough”, the slightly-built, 115-pound woman said.
More than 100 roads are closed and “at least one major highway has been submerged”, Troeh said, and added that “river basins across the area continue to fill with water”. “And it’s only going to get worse”.
Gov. John Bel Edwards said the rains that have blanketed the state were expected to subside Sunday. The woman, who wasn’t identified, was traveling with her husband and mother when their vehicle was swept away by the flood.
Dominique Dugas and her family of Lafayette, La., were rescued Sunday – her 29th birthday. “It is NEVER safe to drive or walk into flood waters”.
After some frantic conversation between the boaters and the woman trapped inside, the soft top on this particular Miata allowed the boaters to take a knife to the vehicle and send a man into the water to help her.
Following a very brief conversation, the woman can be heard to say, “Oh my God, I’m drowning”. “We’ve been rescuing subdivisions”, he said.
Unable to crack the glass, one of the men begins to tackle the soft roof of the convertible – however just as he makes a rip in the fabric the auto sinks below the surface. He said he has Stage 4 cancer but he felt like he had to help.
One man asks for a knife to cut the cloth roof of the auto – which was a convertible – and hops on the vehicle’s trunk, which juts into the air as the auto quickly sinks. Abandoned cars were pushed to the side of the road, lawn furniture and children’s toys floating through the waters.
“Get my dog!” the woman yells as she emerges from the water. The woman and her dog were pulled from her vehicle after it was completely submerged.
She popped up through the water and announced they needed to rescue one more victim.
It’s then that she panics, realizing that her dog is not with her. “Get my dog, now”.
“She said they were going to evacuate them but no one could get to them”, Muse said.
People had previously been taught to wait for the auto to fill with water to equalize the pressure.
“Snakes were everywhere”, she said.
“She better not be”, the woman replies, offering to go down and search herself.
The rescuer reemerged and exhorted: “I got your dog”.
All three then swam to safety on the boat. It was one of thousands of rescues after a deluge dropped more than a foot of rain on parts of Louisiana, submerging roads, cars and homes.
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“People that should have evacuated didn’t, so they are having to be evacuated”, he said.
