Water’s ebb reveals the ruin
20 parishes will get aid; dead now 9
BATON ROUGE — Much of southern Louisiana shifted into post-flood mode Tuesday, with residents trickling back to areas wrecked by water to begin cleaning up.
The state got a welcome bit of good news: Federal authorities expanded their original disaster declaration from four parishes — mostly around Baton Rouge — to 20, including areas well to the west of Lafayette.
Gov. John Bel Edwards welcomed the declaration.
“We’re going to work around the clock and do everything humanly possible to render aid,” Edwards said. He added, however, he is worried about “battle fatigue” setting in as rescuers
and residents deal with day upon day of stress.
More than 60,000 people had signed up for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to The Associated Press.
The number of those stranded and still needing rescue, however, “was next to impossible to say,” Mike Steele, a spokesman for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, told The Washington Post, “and it’s changing every minute.”
Steele said about 30,000 have been rescued by personnel with the National Guard, the wildlife and fisheries agency, state police, state fire marshals and local agencies, according to the Post.
FEMA chief Craig Fugate also toured disaster-afflicted areas, vowing to send thousands of workers to Louisiana to aid recovery and help make sure people have housing.
The flood-related death toll rose to nine after the Tuesday discovery of two men who died in separating drownings, authorities said. Two other deaths, one in Rapides Parish and another in Tangipahoa, were under investigation. Late Tuesday, officials could not confirm the circumstances of those two deaths.
The Associated Press and The Washington Post reported 11 dead.
Among the two deaths recorded Tuesday was Bill Borne, 58, the founder of home health care company Amedisys. East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner William “Beau” Clark also identified a body was found Monday night in the Sherwood Forest area as that of Brett Broussard, 55. Both died of accidental drowning, Clark said.
In places all across south Louisiana, officials still were in assessment mode.
Parts of north Baton Rouge were still underwater Tuesday, even though water had receded at least 6 feet. The same was true on the south end of the parish.
In Denham Springs, part of neighboring Livingston Parish and one of the hardest-hit areas along the swollen Amite River, dry land began to emerge after days underwater.
At the Juban Crossing shopping center, the water was gone, but it left behind a layer of silty, gray mud.
The Amite River had fallen about 7 feet by Tuesday morning, dipping back below major flood stage and allowing floodwaters to recede in many areas of the city. Law enforcement officials began allowing residents and supply deliveries to return to the city in the afternoon.
Parish President Layton Ricks said some 60 percent to 75 percent of homes were inundated parishwide, though the extent of loss remains unknown.
Once the calls for rescue fade, crews will begin a “Hurricane Katrina-style” houseto-house search for people who may have been trapped by the rapidly rising waters, said Brandi Janes, deputy director of the parish’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
In a parish with 135,000 residents and nearly 50,000 households, the search likely will require help from every law enforcement agency, as well as the Louisiana National Guard, Janes said.
The flood’s toll on businesses also is likely to be extensive, Ricks said.
Juban Crossing’s developer estimated up to $30 million in lost revenue and property damage there, and many businesses were damaged by flooding, Ricks said, but the Bass Pro Shops store and Sam’s Club in Denham Springs may have been spared.
Also spared were the Denham Springs-area homes of the three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers slain by a gunman July 17, none of which took on water, Ricks said.
“So there are miracles happening in this ordeal,” he said.
Most residents were not as lucky.
Water marks on homes around Denham Springs ranged from waist-high to the eaves, with some houses along River Road showing damage a foot above their second-story balconies. Ruined couches and mattresses and refrigerators encircled with duct tape lined nearly every residential street.
On Sunset Drive, off Cockerham Road, every appliance, piece of furniture and memento from inside Kenneth and Debbie Tate’s home sat under their carport and out on their lawn Tuesday.
“I’m lucky,” Debbie Tate said. “I got flood insurance — only because they made me get it three years ago when the flood maps changed. My mom and sister both have 2 feet of water. No insurance.”
Tate, 57, has lived in the Cockerham Road area since 1969 and on Sunset Drive since 1993 but said she never saw flooding like this before.
“I always said, ‘If I ever flood, there won’t be any Denham Springs left.’ Well, I was right,” she said.
Neighbor Doug Miller, 63, said he moved to Louisiana from his native Illinois to escape the blizzards and tornadoes. The losses he and his neighbors had suffered in the flooding are devastating, he said.
Miller said it took less than an hour Saturday morning for the water to rise from the sidewalks — the highest point he had ever seen water get in his 22 years living on Sunset Drive — to the inside of their homes.
“Been nothing but turmoil ever since,” he said.
Farther up the road, Allison White, 57, sat under her carport, wringing water from towels.
“It’s devastating,” she said of the flooding, “but at least I get new floors, new cabinets, new furniture. That’s the attitude I’ve got to carry right now. I’ve yet to freak out about it. I’m sure that’ll happen when I’m alone.”
FLOODWATERS PUSH ON
South of Baton Rouge, the floodwaters continued to push into new areas, forcing new road closures and evacuations.
Schools in more than 20 parishes remained closed, with some officials saying they were not sure when they would be able to reopen.
The state-run women’s prison at St. Gabriel saw the evacuation of more than 1,200 inmates, who were taken to other prisons, a spokesman said. State corrections officials made the call to evacuate the prison “as a precautionary measure,” when water rose in nearby areas.
In Sorrento, near where the Amite River flows into Lake Maurepas, the “Cajun Navy,” a flotilla of volunteers with boats who have been supplementing official rescue efforts around the state, again took the water, helping any who needed to get out.
Bayou Manchac, Alligator Bayou and Blind River, all of which feed into the Amite River, were still flowing in reverse Tuesday, fed by the huge crest of the river. Crews were dropping Hesco basket flood barriers into the Alligator Bayou on Tuesday to try to stem the flow.
Although the water’s ebb brought relief to some, it also brought reports of looting and other opportunistic crimes.
Law enforcement officials in East Baton Rouge Parish arrested at least 14 people suspected of looting in four incidents, authorities said. In neighboring Livingston Parish, there were another eight arrests.
The arrests prompted a sharp warning from Mayor-President Kip Holden of East Baton Rouge Parish.
“We are not going to tolerate lawlessness of any kind or anywhere in our city,” Holden said in a statement. “No part of our city will be unprotected. If you break the law, you will be arrested and prosecuted. The protection of our city and its citizens are top priority.”
East Baton Rouge Sheriff Sid Gautreaux announced Tuesday that he would enforce a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew in the parish. Gautreaux said he got an executive order from Bel Edwards to impose the curfew because Holden did not exercise his authority sooner, like other parish and municipal leadership had already done in Livingston, Central and Tangipahoa over the past few days. Officials in Livingston Parish already had announced a curfew, and Ascension Parish law enforcement officers imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
The announcement sparked an angry response from Holden, who said he objected to the way the issue was being handled. But, he said, “I’m not going to be concerned about the politics. I’m still going to focus on the people.”
In addition to the arrests, some people returning to their houses said others had invaded their residences while they were away seeking safety.
“They took all the TVs, everything they could get their hands on. Everything I had up high, all my appliances and stuff,” said Elmira Perkins, 56, who returned Tuesday to her residence in north Baton Rouge.
In south Baton Rouge, Nakia Chilton and her family were moving a big-screen TV into a pickup to haul it away.
She said she didn’t want to give thieves an opportunity to pilfer her flooded house like they did her neighbor, who’d returned to find valuable items missing during the days of the flood.
“Right here, the police were right here,” Chilton said, motioning to Antioch Street, where she lives. “But they might have thought they
lived there.”
Chilton said her neighbors believe they may have been robbed by someone they know. She noted there’s no way for law enforcement officers or passers-by to realize that someone was taking items from a house illegally because the region is now dotted with residents in safety gear, ripping out the insides of their homes.
1983 RECORDS SHATTERED
Officials said they prepared as well as they could, but nothing could have readied them for this year’s unprecedented flood, not even the 1983 floods that wrecked much of the same area.
This year’s flood shattered the records from that year, said state climatologist Barry Keim.
That benchmark 1983 storm is often referred to as a 100-year flood, Keim said.
This year, some areas received two-day rain totals considered to be greater than a 1,000-year storm, he said.
It’s still unclear why a relatively weak and unnamed tropical disturbance produced so much rain, but one cause of the accumulation was that it was a slow-moving system. Indeed, in Baton Rouge there was continuous rainfall for 32 hours over the weekend, he said.
Even with a hurricane, he said, it may rain heavily for a while as a feeder band moves through, but there are breaks in that rainfall.
“This storm just was relentless,” Keim said.
The flooding may not be over yet, but concerns ebbed slightly on Tuesday about backwater overflowing from bayous, creeks and other water sources in Baton Rouge into streets and residences.
Backwater flooding happens when smaller water sources that normally drain into rivers like the Amite can no longer feed into the larger rivers, which are full of water themselves. Bayous and creeks then spill out onto streets instead.
Baton Rouge Chief Administrative Officer William Daniel said Tuesday that he is cautiously optimistic that future backwater flooding might not be as severe as originally anticipated. But he said people will know for sure within the next 24 hours.
“We were watching the crest of all of the floods heading south and knowing Bayou Fountain and Manchac will not be able to flood into the Amite,” Daniel said. “We were fearful of the flooding that will take place. But now, just observing the flood, just observing the water heights, we’re feeling a little better about it.”
Information for this article was contributed by Jim Mustian, Andrea Gallo, Amy Wold, Elizabeth Crisp and David Mitchell, Ted Griggs, Maya Lau, Heidi R. Kinchen, Bryn Stole, Rebekah Allen, Tim Boone and Olivia McClure of The Advocate. This article was published with the permission of The Advocate of Baton Rouge.
Bayou Manchac, Alligator Bayou and Blind River, all of which feed into the Amite River, were still flowing in reverse Tuesday, fed by the huge crest of the river.