Search for bodies as cleanup begins
Water starts to recede in most areas after days of devastating rain in Louisiana
Authorities have gone door to door and car to car to check for bodies while 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.
Even as the water fell in some areas, it was rising in other places downstream, where people furiously filled sandbags and fled to shelters.
Officials painted a stark picture of the crisis so far: at least 40,000 homes damaged and 11 people killed in some of the worst flooding in Louisiana history, touched off by as much as 60cm of rain in 48 hours. Over 30,000 people have been rescued since Saturday, with more being brought to safety by the hour.
There were scattered reports of looting, and Governor John Bel Edwards said parishes with widespread damage would be placed under curfew.
The smell of muddy water hung heavy in the air as people donned surgical masks and began the backbreaking job of ripping out soggy carpet, drywall and insulation. They cleaned out spiders and cockroaches that had bubbled up through the sewer grates.
Raymond Lieteau, 48, returned to his home in the Woodlands neighbourhood of Baton Rouge yesterday to survey the damage and begin cleaning up. The water line on a mirror showed that he had more than 1.5m of water inside his home.
“My furniture is all over the place,” he said. “It’s just amazing.”
The bedroom floors were buckled and the walls bowed, and the swimming pool, once a crystal-clear blue, was filled with brown water.
His wife, Daniella Letelier, put on rubber gloves and began sorting through stacks of family photos, removing them from their sleeves and placing them on a table to dry out. Many of the photos were of her 15-year-old daughter, Olivia.
“I can’t live without her pictures. It breaks my heart,” she said.
Officials started going house to house to make sure everyone was accounted for and searched the countless cars that had been caught in the flooding.
“I don’t know we have a good handle on the number of people who are missing,” the Governor said.
More than 60,000 people had signed up for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and 16 parishes were added to the federal disaster declaration, bringing the total to 20.
And help was coming from quarters beyond the federal Government.
Performer Taylor Swift told the Associated Press that she is donating US$1 million ($1.37m) to flood relief.
In Livingston Parish, one of the hardest-hit areas with about 138,000 people, an official said about 75 per cent of the homes were a total loss.
Officials from Livingston Parish were in Baton Rouge yesterday to talk to federal officials about getting temporary housing for their first responders — a sign of the housing crunch that’s likely soon to come with so many people out of their homes for weeks and perhaps months.
Rivers and creeks were still dangerously bloated in areas south of Baton Rouge as the water made its
I’m not going to lie, I cried uncontrollably. But you have to push forward and make it through. Like everybody says, you still have your family. David Key
way toward the Gulf of Mexico. In Ascension Parish, some small towns were already inundated. In St James Parish, authorities called for volunteers to help fill sandbags.
Nearly 800 evacuees were gathered in a makeshift Red Cross shelter established in Gonzales at the Lamar Dixon Expo Centre, a multipurpose facility that has hosted rodeos, car