EYEWITNESS TO LOUISIANA FLOODING- I have YET to see any official vehicle - coast guard boat, police boat - going in there. I'm sure they're out there, but we've been in the midst of this since it started Friday and haven't seen any. Hi Steve,
I saw that someone had mentioned the weather system over Louisiana and Mississippi a few days back on the Q Alerts. Well, that person was right. We have been completely devastated down here, and it doesn't seem to be making national headlines accurately. (Its starting to finally, but you really need to see local coverage.) I find it quite ironic that just last month we made the INTERNATIONAL news for the police shooting and BLM protests. Yes, there were protests, and yes, several police officers were killed, but I guess when the public started wrapping everything standing still with blue ribbons, the news media decided to move on.
Now, we have historic flooding in Baton Rouge, Denham Springs, Watson, Walker, Baker, Hammond, Robert and many, many other cities. 5 parishes are complete disaster areas (that's counties to the rest of the U.S.) And yet our family in other states has had no idea what is going on. 20,000 have been rescued, 10,000 are in shelters, and that doesn't include the ones that CAN'T get reached yet. Many places under water have never flooded before; they're not even in the 100 year flood plane. 90% of the city of Denham Springs is under water, just to give an example. That is where my family lives. AT&T phones were down since Saturday and we're just getting service back, but its spotty. We've got a Cajun "navy" of volunteers who are trying to put boats in to help. Many have been able to, but a majority have been stopped (including us) by authorities. They say its too dangerous and several boats have already sunk due to currents. However, when you see video feeds of the event (which have played 24/7 for us) I have YET to see any official vehicle - coast guard boat, police boat - going in there. I'm sure they're out there, but we've been in the midst of this since it started Friday and haven't seen any.
Words cannot describe the devastation and how bad this is. I couldn't get to my own brother and his pregnant wife, stranded on the second floor of an apartment complex with no water or electricity, surrounded by water 5 feet deep in the bottom apartment, phone lines down, and no one would let us put a boat in to rescue them. Everywhere there was a passable road to try to get close (there were only 3 options) we tried, but officials stopped us. Finally heard from them late last night and they're ok, thank you JESUS! However, we're still waiting for water to go down enough to be able to get them.
Also, I find it very interesting that we saw military vehicles heading toward Baton Rouge from the Mississippi Gulf Coast area just last week. There were 20 - 25 on Saturday August 7th, and before that there were some on Tuesday August 2 headed this way. Now, this immediately concerned me because its hurricane season. Why the hell weren't they headed east toward Florida? Nope. Going toward Baton Rouge. And yet now that we're in crisis, I have only seen a few on the streets, but they're always empty, no rescued flood victims, just a couple military people.
Oh, and as for volunteering at shelters, Red Cross of course has taken that over and its the same as Katrina. They just want your money. People are being turned away with giant pots of jambalaya and red beans and rice at some locations. They just repeatedly ask for $10 donations. Then you go to churches and drop off donations and they gladly take it. However, in some cases, people are being turned away because they are "for members only." Park View Baptist in Baton Rouge turned away a woman and her two children that had WALKED there after their home had flooded and then their car finally stalled out trying to make it to higher ground. Why? Because they weren't members. Right in front of my friend who had just unloaded her truck of supplies to them. (We have since heard that they decided to change this policy. However, at this time they are not listed as an open shelter for the BR area). We had the same thing happen to us at a different church, so we just dropped off cases of waters to everyone outside waiting for buses to take them to another location. On a positive note, some churches really are stepping up. Live Oak Methodist church in Denham Springs has opened their doors to people AND their pets. They're website is
http://www.loumc.org/ if you are able to or wish to help in some way.
Sorry for the length, but we've finally got some communication up and I wanted to let people know what's going on here. There's just too much irony and coincidence for the rest of the states not to know about the suffering here. If this is just a small glimpse of what the American Apocalypse would look like, it is frightening.
For local news on this:
http://www.wafb.com/
For live coverage while its still running:
http://www.wafb.com/story/32767065/watch-live-2016-historic-flooding
For aerial views:
http://www.wafb.com/story/32768154/video-aerials-of-louisiana-flooding-part-1?clienttype=generic
Aug 16, 2016