Another 10 inches were expected in parts of Louisiana over the next two days.
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Getting out ahead of the flood, Michael Tramonte and Nikki Conger clear their possessions from their house on Watters Road, south of Hwy. Forecaster Alek Krautmann said both rivers could flood many houses in suburban areas near Baton Rouge.
The severe weather comes five months after March flooding in Louisiana and MS that left at least four dead and thousands of homes damaged.
Officials advised area residents to boil water and imposed a curfew, the sheriff’s office said.
“Oh my God, I’m drowning”, the woman can be heard saying from inside the vehicle.
One of the rescuers, David Phung, jumps into the murky water and pulls the woman to safety.
Immediately she tells the man who saved her to get her dog, which was also in the vehicle.
Phung takes a deep breath, goes underwater and resurfaces moments later with the small dog.
Edwards, who has called a state of emergency in Louisiana, said on Saturday that emergency workers had to rescue more than 1,000 people from homes, cars and trees as rivers in the southern part of the state spilled over. Edwards said the electricity has been turned off in the mansion and his family has evacuated to a State Police compound in the northern part of East Baton Rouge Parish.
Rivers and their tributaries swelled and bulged beyond their banks.
More than 169,000 sandbags were delivered to the parish. “The vehicle will be recovered once flood waters recede”.
He and his family were relocated after water flooded their basement.
“We can’t access federal assistance during the response phase unless all state resources are exhausted, and that isn’t the case; we’ve been able to respond to parishes’ needs nearly instantaneously”, Carbo said.
“This is a major disaster”, Governor John Bel Edwards said, adding: “This is an ongoing event and we are still in the response mode”.
Glen Curtis with the Louisiana National Guard said 1,000 soldiers have deployed and that Edwards authorized 200 more to mobilize. The governor says more than 1,000 people have had to be rescued from their homes or cars.
Temperatures would be 5 to 15 degrees above average on Sunday across much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, the National Weather Service said. “It has not stopped at all today”.
Flooding in parts of southeast Louisiana and southern MS shut down many roads yesterday, prompting numerous rescues and cutting off at least one town as an area of low pressure slowly moved west along the Gulf Coast.
Even the governor was not immune from the rains.
Torrential rain has swamped large portions of southeast Louisiana, cutting off roads and highways.
A low-pressure system that began in Florida is now centered along the Louisiana-Mississippi state line and causing massive rainfall amounts.
A member of the St. George Fire Department assists residents as they wade through floodwaters from heavy rains in the Chateau Wein Apartments in Baton Rouge.
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Shelters have been opened for those fleeing their homes.
