Flooding in Louisiana Causing Heartache

In the past week, Louisiana has seen torrential-like rain which has caused flooding of historic proportions. Due to the rain, at least a dozen people have died, 8,400 people have been displaced into shelters, 40,000 homes have been water damaged, and 30,000 people rescued from dangerous conditions.

The National Weather Service has announced that most counties in Lousiana have received a minimum of a foot of rain.

This has already caused more than 70,000 residents of Louisiana to register for financial disaster assistance, with 9,000 people claiming water damage to their properties.

Many people are saying that this period of flooding is on the scale of Super Storm Sandy, in terms of the widespread damage dealt on the state. It was almost as if no area was left untouched. The rain and flooding hit nearly everywhere imaginable causing people to flee and seek refuge away from the coast that was hit the hardest.

On a side note, with natural disasters usually comes a spike in crime, similar to that seen in New Orleans during Katrina and in New York during Hurricane Sandy. In both of these instances, crime spiked greatly because of the lack of emergency services available on standby, in addition to many stores and homes being largely abandoned.

There have been quite a few reports coming from Lousiana that suggests more than a dozen incidents involving looting have already taken place largely in part because of the unstable situation. In unfortunate situations like these, crime is usually a side effect, further adding to the preexisting difficulties of recovery.

Organizations like the Red Cross have already mobilized over a thousand aid workers who are looking to assist with the recovery efforts. Obama has already signed a “Disaster Declaration” which will pave the way for greater assistance from the federal government. Based on the scale of this disaster, the state will likely need a considerable amount of aid that will not be covered by the state.

As Louisiana looks forward to bouncing back from this disaster, we should recognize that none of us are exempt from tragedy. In less than a day, a flood can come and wash away everything that we have. The people of Louisiana were definitely not expecting something like this to happen but in the end, it did. It is best to develop contingency plans for unsuspected weather accidents such as this one to minimize your losses to the best of your ability.

Featured Image via Wikimedia