We’ve been calling various relatives since last night. The flooding in Louisiana is the worst they’ve seen.
30 Parishes are expected to be declared disaster areas. 40,000 homes damaged. Roads closed. Even parts of Interstates 10 and 12 were closed.
The people in Louisiana are some of the most resilient that I’ve ever known. They have a long tradition of helping their neighbors. They will eventually recover but it’s going to take a long time
There’s been 10 reported deaths. But it will probably rise as the waters recede and rescuers can start checking homes.
They need any help possible. Food, supplies, and financial donations .
My kids and former in-laws are okay. The in-laws live in Central, and this is the first time in 47 years that they’ve ever had water in their home. They first evacuated to their church, and then to a friend’s home after the church started flooding. The water “only” rose to about 3.5 feet inside, and had receded by yesterday afternoon. Judging by the pictures my sister-in-law shared, they’ve lost at least 90% of everything. (And of course, no flood insurance, since they weren’t in a flood zone.) A terrible thing for anyone, but they’re also approaching 80 and in poor health.)
Have spent part of the day calling and texting people from a rescue map that was being used for volunteer rescue efforts. Fortunately, everyone I was able to contact was safe, but their experience has been devastating.
I live in the New Orleans area and for once we didn’t get hit that hard. We’re fine. Family in the Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas haven’t be so lucky. Two cousins have lost all they own.
Thanks for bringing attention to our situation. Very little national coverage.
My family ancestral home went through a flood with that storm 5 years ago, Irene, that came up the east coast. Unbelievable what 5 feet of water on the 1st floor does to a house.
It is months of work and a LOT of money to put it all back together and be normal again. I have a lot of empathy to those in Louisiana right now.
I talked to my father; seems my bunch is okay. A lot of the local businesses around them got flooded, as well as some nearby residential areas. Clean-up is going to be a mess, let alone rebuilding.
I think Shagnasty is from the northern part of the state, but I don’t know if he’s got kin farther south.
My dad’s family is from the central Louisiana area. About 35 miles from Alexandria. Also have extended family outside Ville Platte. That is an area that’s recently flooded.
That was backwater flooding, though, which is a bit different from what hit south Louisiana over the weekend. (Still a major problem, but not a sudden one.)
Indeed. I tend to take interest in news coming out of Louisiana, as I used to live there, but this had already been going on and had gotten bad before I even became aware of it. I didn’t even see much at first on social media from my Louisiana friends. They, like you, are in New Orleans and haven’t gotten hit too bad. By now, they’re posting stories about the rest of the state but there was a delay.
Also, just gonna mention that “your family ok?” isn’t the proper title for a Louisiana thread.
The Thread title should have been: Flooding in Louisiana - How y’mama-now?
Live in a New Orleans suburb. Not only did New Orleans not “get hit too bad” … the New Orleans area is totally unscathed.
Drive 80+ miles west and northwest … a totally different story. My work has a major office in Baton Rouge, several dozen people who work there have been personally affected. Everything from power outages at best to total home losses at worst. Some work friends of mine had to be evacuated from their homes by boat.
All this in areas that were virtually unscathed during Katrina and other hurricanes. I mean, the current flood areas are places some people from New Orleans would go to avoid hurricane flooding. To be clear – this recent flooding is not from a named hurricane, though it was a rotary tropical system that happened to develop over land (as opposed to a linear cold/warm front).
I don’t have family there, but my Facebook feed is full of pictures of the flooding, people and animals being carried or huddled in boats, and buildings with neck-high water surrounding them.
Particularly pitiful are the pictures of dogs struggling to keep their noses above water.
Volunteers with boats calling themselves the “Cajun Navy” are coming to the rescue.
It’s all very dramatic and my thoughts are with everyone affected.
My stepmother in Livingston Parish made it out with the clothes she was wearing and her dog. Everything else is lost, but she’s OK, at least physically. She is staying with family in Central until she can get back to her home to evaluate the damage.
A local business in Little Rock is gathering supplies for the flood victims in Louisiana. Basic stuff, clothes, shoes, toiletries, towels. My wife and I are going shopping Thursday. Will drop off several bags of supplies for people that need it. We’ve already made a financial donation.
I keep hoping the national media will focus more on this. Get the word out that this covers a large area and effects tens of thousands of people. 70,000 have already registered for Federal disaster assistance.
Finally reached my cousin outside Alexandria. He’s fine. No flooding there
The weather has shut down his commercial pecan business. Trees haven’t produced nuts in three years. He thinks it’s because they’ve had so much rain and it’s interfering with pollination.
I’ve been asking my kids in the Baton Rouge area what we can do for them. Both finally gave me an answer today. Girl 1.0 asked if I could donate to her friends’ band - they lost their practice space, and about half of their equipment. And, of all things, Boy 1.0 wanted me to send DVD cases. His movie collection is about the only personal thing he can salvage from the house, but the cases are beyond help. I sent 200 single disc cases and 100 doubles. (And a big box of gloves. He’s on the autism spectrum, and has never liked for his hands to be dirty - even his first-birthday cake horrified him when he touched it and got icing on his hands. Trying to clean those muddy discs will give him nightmares.)
Of all the things they might have needed, I wouldn’t have guessed amplifiers and DVD cases!
