As many as 30,000 people have been rescued following unprecedented floods in the southern USA state of Louisiana, including a 78-year-old woman who spent a night stranded in a tree, police said late Monday.
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Some residents of Louisiana’s capital city have begun struggling to return to flood-damaged homes on foot, in cars and by boat as waters recede in some areas. “We’re still rescuing in the southern part of the parish”, said Layton Ricks, the president of the parish.
“Our state is now experiencing a historic flooding event that is breaking every record”, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said in a statement late on Monday.
Governor Edwards said on Monday that Louisiana “is now experiencing a historic flooding event that is breaking every record”.
Officials from Livingston Parish were in Baton Rouge on Tuesday to talk to federal officials about getting some sort of temporary housing for their first responders – a sign of the housing crunch that’s likely soon too come with so many people out of their homes for weeks and perhaps months.
Floodwaters reach the front steps of a home near Holden, La., after heavy rains inundated the region.
The eighth storm-related death was the accidental drowning of a 66-year-old man whose body was found in the Sherwood Forest area, which has been a site of severe flooding, state officials said. “What am I going to do about it?”
Some 40,000 homes and business were reported without power.
Although floodwaters were receding in many parts on Tuesday, they were continuing to rise in other areas mostly in the south of the state.
Eight additional parishes had been approved for inclusion in the federal disaster declaration, bringing the total to 20, Edwards said.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Authorities went door to door and vehicle to auto to check for bodies Tuesday, and homeowners began the heartbreaking task of gathering up soaked family photos and mucking out houses dank with bayou mud, as the floodwaters started to recede across parts of southern Louisiana.
The agency forecast the river would not fall below flood level until Wednesday morning.
Inside, a young boy rode his bicycle around the now-empty church.
The American Red Cross called the flooding the worst since Superstorm Sandy hit coastal areas in NY and New Jersey in 2012. Friedman says more than 70,000 people have registered for individual assistance and more than 9,000 have filed flood insurance claims.
In nearby Livingston Parish, 76 percent of all homes were already “lost to floods”, Lori Steele, a spokeswoman for the parish, told NBC News.
The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry has activated its mobile pet shelter to the Baton Rouge River Center which is now sheltering evacuees. State maps show that some businesses on Beach Drive are in a high-risk zone and are required to get insurance, while other properties just up the street have a different designation. More than 10,600 people have sought refuge at Red Cross shelters across Louisiana, and the disaster relief organization estimates that its response efforts could cost as much as $10 million.
“There are still a lot of people who are suffering”, the governor said.
Ordinary citizens in small boats – who in the last few days have earned the title, “cajun navy” – appeared to outnumber formal rescue crews.
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Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon said in hard-hit Baton Rouge only 12 percent of residences are covered by flood insurance, and 14 percent in Lafayette – what he called “shocking”.
