BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — Emergency crews plucked motorists from cars stranded by high water along a seven-mile stretch of south Louisiana interstate, pulled others from inundated homes and waist-deep waters and braced for more of the dangerous work Sunday after conducting at least 2,000 rescues.
Pounding rains swamped parts of southeast Louisiana so that whole subdivisions and shopping centers appeared isolated by floodwaters, which have claimed at least three lives.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency, calling the floods “unprecedented” and “historic.” He and his family were even forced to leave the Governor’s Mansion when chest-high water filled the basement and electricity was shut off.
“That’s never happened before,” said the governor, whose family relocated to a state police facility in the Baton Rouge area.
The governor toured flood-ravaged areas by helicopter later Saturday after rivers and creeks burst their banks and warned Louisiana residents it would be too risky to venture out even after the rains start to subside.
In addition to the three confirmed deaths, Edwards said, at least one person is missing.
One of the worries, the governor said, is that as the rain lessens in the next several hours, people will become complacent and feel too at ease in areas where waters may still be rising for several days, getting in cars in areas that could still be dangerous.
“I’m still asking people to be patient. Don’t get out and sightsee,” Edwards said. “Even when the weather is better, it’s not safe.”
In one dramatic rescue Saturday, two men on a boat pulled a woman from a car almost completely underwater, according to video by WAFB.
The woman, who’s not initially visible on camera, yells from inside the car: “Oh my god, I’m drowning.”
One of the rescuers, David Phung, jumps into the brown water and pulls the woman to safety. She pleads with Phung to get her dog, but he can’t find it. After several seconds, Phung takes a deep breath, goes underwater and resurfaces — with the small dog. Both the woman and dog appeared OK.
Elsewhere, rescues continued late Saturday, including missions by crews in high-water vehicles who pulled motorists from one swamped stretch of Interstate 12 between Baton Rouge and nearby Tangipahoa Parish. Maj. Doug Cain, spokesman of the Louisiana State Police, said about 125 vehicles became stranded on the seven-mile stretch, prompting those rescues.
During an aerial tour, a reporter saw homes in parts of rural Tangipahoa Parish that looked like little islands among flooded fields. Farmland was covered and streets descended into impassable pools of water.
In the Livingston Parish city of Denham Springs, a suburb of Baton Rouge, entire shopping centers were inundated, only roofs of cars peeking above the water. And in many places, the water was still rising, with days expected before rivers were expected to crest.
Though the governor’s office said Saturday that more than 1,000 people had been rescued, that number appeared to at least double by the end of the day, when Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard said 2,000 people in his parish alone had been rescued, and more people still await help.
“We haven’t been rescuing people. We’ve been rescuing subdivisions,” he said. “It has not stopped at all today.”
In Baker, just north of Baton Rouge, residents were rescued by boats or waded through waist-deep, water to reach dry ground. Dozens of them awoke Saturday morning on cots at a makeshift Red Cross shelter only a few blocks from their flooded homes and cars.
Shanita Angrum, 32, said she called 911 on Friday morning when she realized flood waters had trapped her family in their home. A police officer carried her 6-year-old daughter, Khoie, on his back while she and her husband waded behind them for what “felt like forever.”
