Emergency workers have rescued thousands of stranded Louisiana residents from submerged homes and cars in the wake of a historic flood that has left at least three people dead, authorities said.
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Beginning Friday, 6 to 10 inches of rain fell on parts of Louisiana and several more inches of rain fell on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. “Not just from their homes but from their vehicles”, he said, and “some people, not just from their vehicles, they’ve been clinging to trees and other things like this in swift-moving floodwaters”.
Footage has captured the moment a rescuer pulled a woman from a sinking vehicle during floods in the United States, before disappearing back under the water to rescue her dog. He and his family were forced to leave the governor’s mansion when chest-high water filled the basement and electricity was turned off. In St. Helena Parish, a man died when his pickup truck was swept off a flooded highway and submerged underwater, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a news conference.
Forecasters also maintained a flash flood watch and flood warnings for eastern regions of Louisiana, including the state capital of Baton Rouge, Tingler said.
The governor toured flood-ravaged areas by helicopter on Saturday after rivers and creeks burst their banks. Heavy downpours pounded parts of the central U.S. Gulf Coast on Friday, forcing the rescue of dozens of people stranded in homes by waist-high water.
“People are keeping it together better than I thought they would”, he said of the roughly 60 people who stayed at the Red Cross shelter.
“This is unprecedented”, Edwards said, advising residents to heed warnings. Some areas got even more rain.
John Mitchell, 23, said he swam to safety with his pit bull after police officers in a boat picked up his 20-year-old girlfriend, her 1 year-old daughter and Mitchell’s father. A police officer carried her six-year-old daughter, Khoie, on his back while she and her husband waded behind them. “I didn’t think too much of it at that time, but it just took about 40 minutes and it was in my house”.
In a 24-hour period, Baton Rouge reported as much as 11.34 inches of rain compared with 2.34 inches at New Orleans’ worldwide airport in Kenner.
In the video, several people on a boat approached a rapidly sinking vehicle telling the woman inside to get out, but she was trapped and unable to free herself.
Meanwhile, the body of a woman from Amite was recovered Saturday from the Tickfaw River, according to Michael Martin, chief of operations for the St. Helena Sheriff’s Office.
Numerous rivers in southeast Louisiana and southern MS were overflowing. Some areas got even more rain. She said she used a saw, a screwdriver and her feet, knocking her way through wood, vinyl and sheet rock, desperately trying to reach safety. “I’d kick at it for a while”.
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He described the floods as more severe than those that struck the state in March, when at least four were killed and thousands of homes were damaged in Louisiana and Mississippi.
