Keisha Taylor, a 37-year-old mother of four, has spent three nights in two different shelters since her family fled the flooding at their Baton Rouge apartment complex.
Taylor tells The Associated Press she doesn’t know how many more nights they will be sleeping on cots inside the downtown arena where hundreds sought shelter. She probably could stay with relatives in White Castle, but three of her kids are enrolled in Baton Rouge schools that could reopen next week.
“This is where I live. I need to be home,” she says.
Taylor is one of thousands of people across southern Louisiana displaced by catastrophic flooding and now struggling with where to live. The flooding that struck the Baton Rouge and Lafayette areas left at least 13 people dead. More than 30,000 have been rescued, and at least 70,000 have registered for federal disaster assistance. At the height, 11,000 people were in shelters, though that figure dropped to 6,000 by Wednesday.
As Daily Report previously reported, the situation has created a surge in demand for Baton Rouge area multifamily properties and hotels that hasn’t been seen since the weeks and months following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
People now are staying in shelters, bunking with friends or relatives, or sleeping in trailers on their front lawns. Others unable or unwilling to leave their homes are living amid mud and the ever-present risk of mold in the steamy August heat.
Many victims will need an extended place to stay while they rebuild. Countless others didn’t have flood insurance and may not have the means to repair their homes.
Terri Ricks, deputy secretary for the Department of Children and Family Services, which helps organize sheltering efforts in parishes, says the state is talking with parishes about possibly running a long-term shelter in the region if needed to give people a place to stay while they repair and rebuild.
“Nobody wants to do a long-term shelter,” she says. “We want to get people in a more permanent situation.”
