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At Least 10 deaths Recorded and 40,000 Homes Destroyed in Louisiania Flood
BATON ROUGE, LA – AUGUST 15: A sign is seen along a flooded road on August 15, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Record-breaking rains pelted Louisiana over the weekend leaving the city with historic levels of flooding that have caused at least 10 deaths and damaged thousands of homes.
At least 10 people have been declared dead and 20,000 people rescued because of “historic” flooding in the Southern U.S. State of Louisiana, Governor John Bel Edwards said on Tuesday.
He said that more than 8,000 people stayed in shelters on Monday night as search and rescue operations continued in the flooding that began after heavy rainfall hit the southern part of the state on Friday.
“Nobody has been forgotten – this is a very difficult situation to get response out as quickly as we would like to.
This is a historic flooding event.
About 40,000 homes have been damaged to varying degrees by the disaster,” Edwards told a press conference.
The governor also encouraged residents to register for federal disaster relief, noting that 40,000 individuals have already requested assistance.
Edwards said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has added eight more parishes to its major disaster declaration, which had been initially granted to four parishes.
The governor requested the U.S. government to declare disaster in a total of 21 parishes.
Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
