Torrential rains on Friday pounded Louisiana for a fourth day, leaving roads impassable, submerging cars and forcing people from their homes overnight.
The Bossier City area across the Red River from Shreveport has taken the brunt of the storm that began saturating northern Louisiana late on Tuesday. At least three people have died and mandatory evacuations have been enforced by rescuers using large trucks able to negotiate the high waters.
At the Pecan Valley Estates mobile home park, Sam Cassidy and his wife were the last holdouts. The murky waters surrounded Cassidy’s home and his neighbors had already left. He said he would leave if the water started to get inside but he was worried about looters.
Photo: AP
He said God might take it all with the flood, but he would not allow anyone else to. On Thursday morning, with waters creeping up his front steps, he stood in waist-deep water watching his neighbors evacuate. An alligator swam by. By night it looked like a “horror movie.”
“We were the only two here,” he said. “It was pitch black, the houses were empty. It’s been an adventure.”
Residents in two additional subdivisions in the region were on Friday ordered to leave, while the Louisiana Downs racetrack was under a mandatory evacuation, said Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Lieutenant Bill Davis. A flood warning was in effect for the Red Chute Bayou, where levees built to prevent water from overflowing were at risk.
The southeast of the state started to get battered by rain on Thursday and Friday.
In Tangipahoa Parish, Sheriff Daniel Edwards said about 50 roads were closed due to high water and an estimated 300 to 400 people had to evacuate.
Flash flood waters in many populated areas appeared to be receding by Friday afternoon, although more rain could change that.
To the east, in St Tammany Parish, officials said three local rivers were reaching historic levels and would continue to rise. They encouraged people in homes nearby to decide before dark whether to evacuate.
Thaddeus Jackson, 37, said water was already entering his two-story apartment in Hammond when he arrived home from work at around 2:30am. He tried to protect his furniture, then he and his wife and children went to bed.
“When I woke up this morning, the rescue people were banging on the door, telling us to get out,” said Jackson.
Further to the east in Washington Parish, swollen rivers and creeks have led to widespread flooding, prompting rescues from scores of homes.
Mike Haley, a chief deputy for the parish’s sheriff, said dozens of homes have been flooded. The Coast Guard had to send a helicopter from New Orleans to rescue someone trapped on a roof.
There were no reports of serious injuries or deaths, Haley said, but added that the flooding was worse than what the parish saw during Hurricane Isaac in 2012.
The severe weather system that has dumped rain across the state has been feeding off of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, said Frank Revitte from the National Weather Service in Slidell.
On Tuesday night and on Wednesday, the system dumped about 38cm to 50cm of rain over north Louisiana before moving south where it dumped about 25cm to 38cm of rain on Thursday and Friday in some areas — in just three to four hours — Rivette said.
The weather system is starting to move slowly to the northeast, he said, giving the state a chance to dry out.
Southeast Louisiana will dry out faster than north Louisiana, where the ground is saturated, he said.
The rain would be slow to leave — additional showers were expected yesterday.
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