A Participant's Perspective on the Louisiana Flooding

[Geschosskopf]

As some of you know, I'm a firefighter in Louisiana (aka "Lousy Anna").  You all might also have heard that things have been a bit damp here lately, to say the least.  I only just got home (to a totally high and dry house) from working 62.25 hours straight as a result of that "dampness".  My efforts to counteract with ethanol the residual adrenaline and caffeine in my system having so far failed, I figured I might as well vent to pass the time until I finally feel sleepy.  So here goes.

For them as don't know, starting in the wee hours of Friday, 12 August, and continuing most of that day, an unprecedented (in US history) deluge dropped on the "laces" area of the "boot" of Louisiana and adjacent areas of Mississippi.  I live on the NW edge of this area, about where you'd knot the laces, and got 15 inches before noon.  Going west on my latitude, the rainfall in that  period increased up to about 2 feet in the middle of the "laces" and then decreased to about 15 inches again by the top of the "toe".  And it then kept on raining, although not quite as hard for such long periods of time.  Still, often it was hard to see the front end of my firetruck's hood ("bonnet" to the Brits) and we mostly drove by Braille when responding to calls.  This is all to say, where I live we got some SERIOUS flash flooding and had to do quite a few rescues.  We also had 4 houses and 1 large church hit by lightning in the midst of this but, fortunately, it was raining so hard that no sustained fires resulted.  One of these houses was flooding at the time and we had guys inside it rescuing residents when it was hit, but apart from being momentarily blinded and deafened, nobody was hurt.  Basically, Friday and into early Saturday was our main time of it and that was so long ago (since I had a decent night's sleep, anyway), and so much has happened since, that it's all a blur now.

Since then., we've been licking our wounds and picking up pieces.  Meanwhile, all the rain we got up front has been oozing down various rivers and bayous onto the alluvial plain surrounding the peninsula of high ground I live on.  It has already and is continuing to spread beaucoup ruin as it flows south.  It differs from a hurricane in that there was no wind, so it wasn't even a named storm. This was all just a bad rain storm.  Most trees, and therefore most power lines, are still up. Also, no winds meant no flying debris, so rescuers by air, land,and flooded road could get in there immediately.  Still, it came from nowhere, instead of giving us several days to prepare like a hurricane does, and the downstream rivers are flooding way above any historical records. Many folks, relying on previous experience of not flooding, stayed put, and are now having to be rescued,  And then the storm moved west and did the same sort of thing to Lafayette and surrounding areas.  About half the state is flooded right now.

My thoughts are with all those who have lost everything in this.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[cubinator]

Kudos to you for all the work you've put in to help!

[Bill Phil]

I never heard about that... I guess I'm more out of touch than I thought. I hope it doesn't get any worse...

[Dman979]

Go get some sleep, and stay away from alcohol for a bit. You need to be aware of your surroundings when working, and alcohol doesn't do that.

But I'm sure you already knew that.

 

I can't imagine having to do that kind of rescue work. Stay safe.

 

[Geschosskopf]

Thanks for the kind words.

So I slept in this morning (about 11 hours) and had a slight hangover.  I scoured the internet for info on what was happening elsewhere, drove around looking at local damage that I hadn't seen previously, then reported back into work in the early afternoon.  I was expecting to be given something to do, or be sent somewhere harder hit, but neither happened so I went back home (this being my normal day off).  Tomorrow I'll go around a couple of neighborhoods documenting damage.  As I understand things, my parish is or soon will be added to the federal disaster area and there's a LOT of paperwork to do about that.

In my tour today, I took some pics which I'll get to in a minute.  But first, here's a map showing how much rain we got Friday and Saturday:  My bailiwick is in the red box.  I live in one of the gray spots in it that got 15".

The problems in Baton Rouge and points east of the Mississippi River are due mostly to the rain that fell not just right there, but at my latitude and into Mississippi.  This area is the headwaters of all rivers that overflowed so much and flooded everybody out further south.  The flooding around Lafayette is from its own drainage systems on the other side of the Mississippi River.

This is just an insane amount of rain in such a short period of time. Especially because about 3/4 of rain east of the Mississippi all fell Friday morning, and the bulk of the rain west of the Mississippi all fell Saturday.

Anyway, some local damage.  My bailiwick is a peninsula of high ground and hills surrounded on 3 sides by flood plain, so the water didn't pool up.  Instead, it quickly ran off down the various creeks and bayous.  These of course way overflowed their banks and wiped out whatever was close to them, but those were the only problem areas we had.  Most folks live on the ridges between waterways so only a small fraction of our total population is now homeless.  We also lost a few bridges, and apparently 1 idiot who decided to try kayaking at the height of the storm.

 

This is the "low water bridge" (basically an improved ford) across Bayou Sara.  The water level is already back nearly to its normal level at this spot just 48 hours later, which is why this sorry excuse for a "bridge" suffices.  However, at its height, the water line was about at eye level where I was standing when I took this pic.  Rather surprisingly, the bridge itself seems to have survived but the approaches on both ends are rather badly eroded.

 

This bridge is on Jaycock Road where it crosses Alexander's Creek.  There is a subdivision and a trailer park on the high ground on the other side and this is only real way in or out for both, although there's a trail out the back passable by 4WD.  Thus, in the several days we normally have before a hurricane hits, we evacuate all these folks.  This time, we had no warning so they're all trapped, except for a few breadwinners who left early for work Friday morning.  However, these folks have all their utilities still running and their houses didn't flood, so they're not in danger.  We can get supplies in there to them (and some can get their own with personal 4WDs), and can get medics in there if needed.  The main problem is, we can't get a fire truck in there so hopefully none of them will get stupid with fire until the bridge gets fixed.

 

This house is in the Flower Hill neighborhood at the confluence of Big and Little Bayou Sara.  As you can see, it was moved about 30 yards off its foundations by a colossal flow moving from right to left.  All the houses in this neighborhood (about 20) got about 5 feet of water in them.  We evacuated all these people when the water was only about 1-2 feet deep here, so nobody got hurt when this happened.

 

This is Marydale Road where it crosses Alexander's Creek.  At the height of the flood, the water level was even with the bridge deck in the background so was about 6' deep in the low area in the foreground.  Note that the creek bed is about 20 feet deep below the bridge and normally has only a trickle in it.  This is the east side of the bridge and there's a similar low spot on the west side, although it's only about 2-3 feet below the bridge deck.  Anyway, Friday afternoon at the height of the flood, a kid waded the west part, walked across the bridge, and tried to wade this part.  He didn't make it and got washed into the woods on the left side of the road about even with the sign, where he clung to a tree.  Fortunately, he had a less-adventurous friend who called for help.  So 8 of us got on a rope, 7 in a line from this end of the bridge out into the deep area, then fed the 8th guy out on the end of the rope to the kid.  He got a life jacket on the kid, tied him to the rope, and then we hauled them both back.  This operation took only about 10 minutes from arrival to completion and was the only bit of semi-derring-do in my area.

 

This is what we called the "Railroad Bridge", not because it was for trains but because the deck of the bridge was made of 3 old flatcars in classic "redneck engineering" style.  It was on Island Road over Williams Creek.  Needless to say, it didn't survive.  Fortunately, both ends of Island Road. are accessible from other roads so this isn't as much of an inconvenience as the Jaycock Road bridge.

The good news is that the main bridge of US Hwy 61 over Thompson Creek is OK, despite having been totally submerged for a while.  Initial reports were that it had been damaged, which would have been a big problem because it's the main supply route into my bailiwick.

Anyway, that's about the it for my bailiwick.  At some point I might be sent down to the major disaster area to give some local fireman a break but that's not in the immediate future.  Again, all thoughts and prayers to all the thousands who have it so much worse.

Edited August 16, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[Bill Phil]

Mississippi is literally only a state away from where I (and tens of thousands of others) live... Damn, that's insane.

Edited August 16, 2016 by Bill Phil

[Andem]

I saw some footage of a woman and her dog in a convertable nearly drowning and getting rescued. Terrifying.

[Cydonian Monk]

Rain.

I think we've all had enough of these random "hey, surprise!" storms this year. Here in two weeks I'm headed back home (West Virginia) to survey our damage (which doesn't seem to be too bad compared to some), but I _was_ planning to go the Southern route. Guess I'm driving across Tennessee instead. 

Glad to hear you're afloat and mostly dry. That rainfall map coloring is wild - it gets so bad that it wraps back around to nothing (from white to white).

Rain.

Guess it's better than nothing.

[Geschosskopf]

13 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

I think we've all had enough of these random "hey, surprise!" storms this year. Here in two weeks I'm headed back home (West Virginia) to survey our damage (which doesn't seem to be too bad compared to some), but I _was_ planning to go the Southern route. Guess I'm driving across Tennessee instead. 

Wow, I hope nothing's too bad up on WV.  Good luck with that.

As to traversing this part of the world in 2 weeks, ask me closer to the time.  The water will be long gone, the interstates probably didn't take much damage, there's not a lot of debris to clear away (other than flooded cars), and the utilities mostly still work.   Thus, bringing in relief supplies and removing non-essential refugees will be well advanced by then, and getting the gas stations and grocery stores back online is always the highest priority, because everything else in the community relies on them.  So I figure in 2 weeks, you should be able to pass through here no problem.  There will certainly be a lot of traffic (relief supplies coming in, junk and refugees going out) and prices might be a bit high, but you should be OK.

Quote

That rainfall map coloring is wild - it gets so bad that it wraps back around to nothing (from white to white).

Yeah, I noticed that, too.  Never seen the like.

Edited August 16, 2016 by Red Iron Crown

[Atlas2342]

Seeing as I live in the Philippines, once hit by Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms recorded, I understand the feeling of seeing the damage around you. @Geschosskopf, my thoughts go out to you (being a firefighter is really hard) and to those affected...

[Angelo Kerman]

Global climate change is causing a real mess. California and the southwest are getting epic drought, while where you're at is getting torrential rain. Thank you for your service, @Geschosskopf, were it not for folks like you, people would have it even worse.

[Dispatcher]

Some things are just beyond words.  I wish you well.  I can't do much but I have contributed to a charity which has a proven track record of helping people during such emergencies.  I recommend that if possible, people learn about well established charities and contribute; even if it is only a small amount.  These small amounts can add up to making  significant help to others in need.

[HoloYolo]

We had a pretty bad windstorm here last year. Winds reached 100 miles an hour, and it was rain and lightning all over. The power went out a few moments before the brunt of the storm came. The trees in the backyard tipped over and either hit the ground or someone else's house. The tree that hit the house opened up a huge gap in the roof, and the people had to patch it up with tarp. The firefighters had to come to help in the neighborhood after, and they also had to put out a small fire due to the electric wires snapping. 

Thank you for helping in that storm. Even though I live 1,500 miles away, this storm was shocking. I'm glad we have such a wonderful person on the forums.

[Geschosskopf]

11 hours ago, Dispatcher said:

I can't do much but I have contributed to a charity which has a proven track record of helping people during such emergencies.

Thanks.  There are tens of thousands of folks in dire need and every little bit helps.  But as you say, be sure to vet the charity because such disasters always attract scam artists to set up fake charities to make themselves rich rather than helping the victims.

Donating is pretty easy these days.  Many of the major, reputable charities now have very simply ways to donate.  You just text a special phrase to a certain number and a small amount (like $10) gets added to your phone bill and goes to that charity for use specifically on this particular disaster.

 

10 hours ago, HoloYolo said:

Thank you for helping in that storm.

Thanks for the props.

--------------------------------------------

Anyway, an update as of the morning of Wednesday 17 August....

In the big picture, I really don't know what's happening in the Lafayette area because my TV news comes out of Baton Rouge so is, of course, focused on local events.  But in the Baton Rouge area, the water has largely drained away at the latitude of Baton Rouge so from there north is now in recovery mode.  However, this just means the water is now further south, where it's still overrunning new neighborhoods and rescues are still going on down there.  This will probably continue for another day or 2 before the water finally dumps into Lake Maurepas to the NW of New Orleans.  See, the Mississippi River runs SE from Baton Rouge to New Orleans and the several smaller rivers, the ones that overflowed and flooded everybody, run parallel to the Mississippi instead of dumping into it.  And people live all long them, so this is going to keep happening all the way to the mouths of the smaller rivers.

With the water now gone in the northern area, folks can get back in there and begin assessing damage and starting repairs and recovery.  This has started firming up the numbers on the size of this disaster.  The most shocking number I heard was that about 85% of all homes in Livingston Parish (2010 population over 128,000) were "totally destroyed", although AFAIK from pictures (I haven't been there myself) they're still standing.  So I take this to mean all the contents ruined and the house requiring all the wall board and flooring replaced, but still structurally sound.  Anyway, folks are now going back home in these areas and trying to make the best of the situation.  Already the sidewalks of Denham Springs are taking on the typical Louisiana post-storm look.of piles of soggy sofas, mattresses, carpets, and ruined refrigerators as people start cleaning out their houses.  And this is just 1 of the 20 parishes (including mine) now in the federal disaster area.

So obviously there's a HUGE number of people severely impacted by this, certainly well over 100,000.  Many of these folks have nothing but the clothes on their backs..  And while relief efforts largely focus on filling their personal survival needs, that's really only the tip of the iceberg here in terms of long-term recovery.  Just as so many houses flooded, so did all the adjacent businesses and schools.  Even if charities, FEMA, and insurance help them get their households back online, many of these people aren't going to hang around if they have no job and their kids can't go to school.  So I suspect that, just as about half the pre-Katrina population of New Orleans never returned there, there will be a large and permanent exodus from this disaster area.  We might even see a net population drop in my own, high-and-dry bailiwick, simply because we're mostly a bedroom community for Baton Rouge, so many of our residents have lost their jobs.  But OTOH, we have functioning schools with high reputations within the state (but with Louisiana usually ranking about 49th out of 50 in public education, isn't really saying much), so we'll probably see some influx for that reason.  But there will be a lot of major disruptions over a this whole region for a long time to come.

I'm very curious as to what FEMA will do this time around to provide temporary housing.  Back in Katrina, there were the now-infamous "FEMA Trailers", which were small, cheap, shoddily built, and lacking many normal health-and-safety features.  They were so poorly made that they started falling apart after a few weeks.  Some folks used these as intended, parked in their driveways while they rebuilt their real homes, and that worked OK.  But quite a few Katrina refugees from New Orleans came from public housing and had been unemployed before the storm.  They had nothing of their own to go back to, no control over rebuilding their former homes, and no ability to better their situations, so for them the trailers became permanent quarters.  Soon the vast refugee trailer parks planted around the region sank into abject squalor and much more suffering and associated crime ensued.  Yesterday, I heard the governor and the local FEMA honcho saying they were NOT going to repeat that, but "no plans were in place" for what they were going to do instead.  That's a bit ominous.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the amount of water that suddenly dumped on us the other day.  The number of acre-feet is just off the charts.  They say this was a "1000-year flood".  The small rivers all exceeded their previous all-time record levels by about 5 feet.  Considering that the land around them is very flat, 5 feet of height makes a huge amount of extra width, which is why so many places that had never come close to flooding before got flooded this time.  And there's still no official name for this disaster.  Some are calling it the "Great Flood", some the "Historic Flood", some the "Big Rain", and several others.  Hurricanes are less confusing because they have their own unique names.

Down at the small picture level, I have today off.  I spent yesterday going door-to-door documenting damage to personal property (houses, cars, etc.) in areas away from the creeks and bayous.  My parish is a huge pile of Pleistocene loess so has lots of little terrain undulations across the surface.  When a large tract of land gets broken up into subdivision lots, some of these lots necessarily are in the low spots between little hills.  Rain runoff goes to these low spots but they have storm drains so this isn't usually a problem.  However, this storm made so much rain so fast that it overwhelmed the drain systems, so a number of these lower houses got some water in them, from a few inches to about 1 foot.  That's not nearly as bad as flooding to the window sills or higher, but it's still a serious problem for the residents.

Anyway, things have calmed down a lot where I live and are starting to get back to normal.  Most of our spare bedrooms and all our motel rooms are full, and the schools are trying to figure out how many more students they can handle.  Meanwhile, we still await possible deployment to other places.

[Mister Dilsby]

All this happened while I was out of town last week; it was around yesterday I thought "hey, Geschosskopf must be waist deep in mulch rescuing people down there in le armpit" Thanks for keeping us up to date with these mission reports, glad you're safe and may FEMA be with you  

[Just Jim]

How did I miss this thread?

This sounds just like when Debbie hit us a couple years ago. We came out OK, but the houses just a couple blocks away were devastated. I wish there was something I could do, or someway I could help, other than just saying I know how you feel... I really do.

[NSEP]

What a disaster! I live below sea level and i am very close to the sea. My house could be under water in 10 years. You are a hero for helping against the flood!