At a later date: The Louisiana Association of Business & Industry has postponed Beyond the Bar—a daylong seminar on the legal and legislative issues impacting business across Louisiana—due to the weather. The seminar was slated to take place on Tuesday, and will be rescheduled at a later date. Hurricane Harvey is making its way back to the Gulf of Mexico but is unleashing heavy bands of rain on southwest Louisiana. The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for all of south Louisiana and a flash flood warning has been extended to southeast Louisiana through Thursday.
Opening soon: A grand opening for Southern University’s Innovation Center on Harding Boulevard will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 22. The center—a collaboration between the Southern University Foundation and the Southern University Baton Rouge campus—will provide space for business incubation, entrepreneurial training and outreach services to businesses throughout the region. The foundation received a $1.2 million grant from the Economic Development Administration to construct the center, which also intends to support disaster resilience through economic diversification.
In an emergency: A state of emergency has been declared in Lafayette Parish. Mayor Joel Robideaux issued the declaration earlier today for the parish, which is under a flash flood warning, The Advertiser reports. The Lafayette Consolidated Government is preparing for the possibility of up to 5 additional inches of rain in the parish through tonight, and a potential additional 2 to 6 inches of rain Tuesday. The Louisiana National Guard has pre-positioned guardsmen, high-water vehicles and boats in Calcasieu, Red River, Natchitoches, Caddo, Vermilion, Orleans, Lafayette and Rapides parishes. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette announced that it was canceling classes at 3 p.m. and would close offices at 5 p.m. today. Read more at The Advertiser.
