At least three people have died and thousands have been rescued after historic flooding swamped the US state of Louisiana.The National Guard and emergency teams have used helicopters to rescue people stranded in their homes or cars.
Searches are continuing for missing people, as the rain is expected to continue over the weekend.The heavy rainfall started on Friday where some areas received more than 43cm of rain. The neighboring states of Alabama and Mississippi are also experiencing severe weather, BBC reported.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency on Friday. On Saturday, he said, “This is an ongoing event. We’re still in response mode.”He and his family were relocated after water flooded their basement.
“This is a flood of epic proportions,” JR Shelton, the mayor of Central City, told The Advocate newspaper. “When we talk about floods now, we’ll talk about the great flood of 2016. Everything else pales in comparison.”
ShanitaAngrum, 32, called the police when she realized her family were trapped in their home. An officer arrived and carried her six-year-old daughter to safety.
“Snakes were everywhere,” she told AP. “The whole time I was just praying for God to make sure me and my family were OK.”
Several rivers in Louisiana and Mississippi are overflowing. Governor Edwards expects some of the rivers will rise 1.2meters above previous record levels.Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s capital, is one of the worst hit areas where as much as 28cm of rain was reported. New Orleans has reported 6cm.
While the worst of the rain appears to have passed, the weather system is expected to move north on Sunday, hitting central and northern Louisiana.
The state is prone to bursts of extreme weather; thousands of acres of Louisiana were flooded in 2011 to divert water from the flooded Mississippi River and to spare cities, including Baton Rouge and New Orleans, that lie downstream.
