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A view of cars stranded on Interstate 12, near Baton Rouge, on Sunday. Boats can be seen on the right side of the image.
Louisiana Civil Air Patrol
It is difficult to know where to begin with the historic flooding in Louisiana during the past week. There is the sheer volume of water itself—based on rainfall accumulations, an estimated 4 trillion gallons of rain fell across southern Louisiana from the middle of Thursday through Saturday morning. That is roughly the same amount of water discharged by the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico over the course of 80 days.
The rains hit hardest just to the east of Baton Rouge in Livingston Parish, which straddles Interstate 12 and is home to about 130,000 people. Some state officials have estimated that as many as 70 percent of the homes and businesses in this parish—more than 30,000 homes—were flooded. Across the state, officials say as many as 80,000 structures may have flooded. Some 20,000 people had to be rescued from flooded homes and vehicles. Very early damage estimates pegged the storm at $1 billion to $2 billion. At least seven people have died.
Area roadways were also hit extremely hard. The state’s Department of Transportation and Development estimates that 30 state roads were washed out, and more than 200 million miles of state roads were under water as water levels rose on Sunday. Some 1,400 bridges will need to be inspected, as well. From Saturday through Monday large chunks of Interstate 10 and 12, which cross the southern tier of Louisiana, were closed due to floodwaters. As of Tuesday morning, parts of Interstate 10 remained closed due to flooding.
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Source: Ars Technica – Louisiana’s 1,000-year floods inundated 80,000 homes and businesses