BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – An act of God is how some are describing it, a catastrophic 48-hour torrent of rain that sent thousands of people in Louisiana scrambling for safety and left many wondering how a region accustomed to hurricanes could get caught off guard so badly.
At least six people have been killed and more than 20,000 have had to be rescued since Friday in some of the worst flooding the state has ever seen.
As of Monday, the rain had mostly stopped, but rivers and creeks in many areas were still dangerously bloated and new places were getting hit by flooding. More than 11,000 people were staying in shelters, with a movie studio and a civic center that usually hosts concerts and ballets pressed into service.
“It was an absolute act of God. We’re talking about places that have literally never flooded before,” said Anthony “Ace” Cox, who started a Facebook group to help collect information about where people were stranded. He was in Baton Rouge to help his parents and grandparents, who got flooded out.
“Everybody got caught off guard,” he said.