This aerial image shows flooded areas of North Baton Rouge, La., Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016.
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Police also were rescuing people from dozens of cars that were stranded on Interstate 12, which was closed from Baton Rouge to Tangipahoa Parish. More than 1,000 residents had been evacuated in Louisiana, the authorities said.
And at least one guy made a decision to use the flooding as an opportunity to show off his Olympic spirit.
Those forced to leave their homes included John Bel Edwards, the Governor of Louisiana, after the governor’s mansion was flooded.
“This is a major disaster”, the governor said.
“We have record levels of flooding along rivers and creeks”.
Edwards postponed a trip that had been scheduled Sunday to view the damage in Acadiana until Monday.
Louisiana’s governor says cellphone service outages are affecting rescuers’ ability to communicate with residents asking for help – and with each other.
He said cresting on flooded rivers is “starting to happen”. Others are staying at private shelters, including those offered by churches.
In addition to the three confirmed deaths, Mr Edwards said, at least one person is missing.
“We don’t know how much wide the water is going to get in these areas”, Edwards said.
While the brunt of the storm that brought torrential rains and flooding to the area was moving west Sunday toward Texas, Louisiana residents should remain cautious, the governor said at a news conference.
“A lot of people are less fortunate than others so with all the craziness that’s going on here in our home and our state I felt like a hot breakfast is the least that we could do”, added neighborhood volunteer Anthony Wade.
A driver and her pet were rescued just in the nick of time as their submerged vehicle rapidly sank in Louisiana floodwaters.
In the midst of the horrific flooding, videos of heroic rescue efforts have circulated social media, including one that records a woman and her dog being snatched in the nick of time from her drowning auto.
“Oh my God, I’m drowning!” the woman cries. They tried to break a auto window, but they couldn’t. But she then told the rescuer that her dog was still in the vehicle.
After the woman attempts to go back into the muddy water to save the dog herself, the man takes one last dive and pulls the pup to the surface.
“No, she better not be”, the woman said, giving Phung no real choice but to plunge back down and try again.
Michael Martin, chief of operations for the parish sheriff’s office, said the woman was riding in a auto with her husband and his mother when flood waters swept the vehicle into the river.
Families were rescued from snake-infested waters and caskets from a swamped cemetery floated down a street as the U.S. state of Louisiana was hit by unprecedented and historic flooding. Farmland was covered and streets descended into impassable pools of water.
A hospital in Baton Rouge – Ochsner Medical Center in Baton Rouge’s O’Neal campus – evacuated about 20 critically ill patients Sunday, they said in a statement.
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As floodwaters swallowed Lyn Gibson’s two-story home in Louisiana’s Tangipahoa Parish, she hacked away on a hole near the roof, desperately trying to get to safety.
