Louisiana Floods

[LiadansWhisper]

Don't know how many of you are aware, but South Louisiana was hit with massive river/rain-based flooding over the past week and a half. Places have flooded that haven't seen flooding in my lifetime. The devastation is massive - many people didn't have flood insurance because they don't live in flood plains. But the floods got to them, too.

 

Here are some pictures:

 

 

This is a picture of part of the LSU campus. In the bottom right are a ring of red-roofed three storey buildings. Those are the West Side Campus Apartments, and I lived there for two years. The 14 storey building right nearby (the big beige one to the right) is a dorm for male freshmen.

 

 

This is another part of Baton Rouge near the LSU campus. Note the levee in the background - this is not rivers coming over levees, this is literally so much water falling out of the sky that there was nowhere for it to go.

 

 

This is another view near the LSU campus. The structure near the top is Tiger Stadium, aka Death Valley.

 

 

There's another aerial view of the flooding in Baton Rouge.

 

In Livingston Parish, which is where Denham Springs is located, 75% of homes were inundated by flooding. Denham Springs is a bedroom community outside of Baton Rouge, and has never flooded like this in my lifetime. Across Louisiana, over 100,000 people have lost their homes. Many if not most do not have flood insurance because their houses are not located in flood plains. In other words, their houses don't flood - but they did this time.

 

The media has only recently picked the story up, but it's been my Facebook wall for about a week now. If you want to help, and you live in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee or Texas, you can walk into any Regions Bank location and make a donation to the US Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. You can make the donation even if you are not a Regions Bank customer.

 

If you don't live in that 16 state area, you may have to donate online or something similar. If you have the funds, people in South Louisiana desperately need it. Many of the people without flood insurance are among the poorest and most ill-equipped (financially) to deal with this disaster. If you don't have flood insurance, the max the government reimburses you for your house is $33k.

 

Keep us in mind. I'm personally safe, as I'm in North Louisiana, but many of my friends are in South Louisiana and trying to get through this. It's just awful.

[Oats McGoats]

I lived in Baton Rouge until very recently. I have a couple of in-laws and friends that lost everything.  It's horrible.

[LiadansWhisper]

I lived in Baton Rouge until very recently. I have a couple of in-laws and friends that lost everything.  It's horrible.

 

I'm so sorry to hear that.

 

I keep trying to explain to people that these were NOT areas prone to flooding, and that is why people did not have flood insurance. But, I guess people think the entirety of Louisiana is below sea level or something.

[Ari Kagon]

My folks live in Louisiana, thankfully they are in the northern area but it doesn't take away from the tragedy. It's easy to forget while sitting behind a computer screen sort of disconnected from the world (while being so connected at the same time) that things like this are going on. 

Thanks for bringing this to the forefront and kind of giving everyone a reality check.

[Arrelaine]

Flooding has been terrible this year. Southern WV went through it's own flood disaster just a few months ago or so. I'm glad it's getting so much coverage, hopefully it'll help with the efforts. It's going to take a lot of clean-up; we're still cleaning up some parts here.

[Valence]

That's always awful :c

[LiadansWhisper]

Flooding has been terrible this year. Southern WV went through it's own flood disaster just a few months ago or so. I'm glad it's getting so much coverage, hopefully it'll help with the efforts. It's going to take a lot of clean-up; we're still cleaning up some parts here.

 

We had really bad flooding up here back in March, and people are still cleaning up/fixing their houses, too. I think the difference between the floods here and what's going on in South Louisiana is that people had time to get out. They knew ahead of time that flooding was going to hit most of the places that got flooded. With the current flood, it was all flash flooding, which caused many people to be caught unaware in their houses.

[Arrelaine]

Flooding has been terrible this year. Southern WV went through it's own flood disaster just a few months ago or so. I'm glad it's getting so much coverage, hopefully it'll help with the efforts. It's going to take a lot of clean-up; we're still cleaning up some parts here.

 

We had really bad flooding up here back in March, and people are still cleaning up/fixing their houses, too. I think the difference between the floods here and what's going on in South Louisiana is that people had time to get out. They knew ahead of time that flooding was going to hit most of the places that got flooded. With the current flood, it was all flash flooding, which caused many people to be caught unaware in their houses.

That's about how it was here, too. It happened in a small area, though. There are always flash floods here, where we live in the mountains. During the rainy seasons we always buckle down and expect a number of them to happen, but the one in WV just hit harder than most do. I live nearly on top of a mountain, so I have to worry more about landslides. But five minutes down the road, or thirty minutes the other way, where the town is in a small valley? If it even rains six inches there's a minor flood going on as it runs down and just sits in the town.

[LiadansWhisper]

That's about how it was here, too. It happened in a small area, though. There are always flash floods here, where we live in the mountains. During the rainy seasons we always buckle down and expect a number of them to happen, but the one in WV just hit harder than most do. I live nearly on top of a mountain, so I have to worry more about landslides. But five minutes down the road, or thirty minutes the other way, where the town is in a small valley? If it even rains six inches there's a minor flood going on as it runs down and just sits in the town.

 

Yup, people really have no idea how fast flash flooding can get bad. When the flooding first started down in South LA, most of us up here just thought it was your typical minor flash flooding, it was no big deal. Because we always get stuff like that during rainy periods. But no one was expecting it to be this...massive.

 

Down here, it's like..you live next to a bayou (river or stream) that feeds into a larger river, feeds into a larger river. But what happens when the larger river is full? The water has nowhere to go, it flows back upstream and starts going over banks. It's just really awful.