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'A hurricane without winds' - Severe flooding strikes Louisiana as thousands face uncertainty, fear

By Rhodesia Muhammad -Contributing Writer- | Last updated: Aug 23, 2016 - 11:37:29 AM

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Louisiana Army National Guardsmen assist residents to evacuate their homes in Bossier City, Louisiana. President Obama has declared 20 parishes disaster areas. Photo MGN Online

NEW ORLEANS— It’s being called the “Great Flood” of 2016, and it’s not over. The images over Louisiana’s capital city, located about an hour from New Orleans, are reminiscent of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that hit the Gulf Coast over a decade ago. A hurricane without the winds is how residents of Baton Rouge are describing the catastrophic storm system that produced more than two feet of rain within 48 hours causing over a dozen deaths and at least 40,000 damaged homes. At Final Call presstime, clean-up efforts continue as residents, city officials and volunteers assess damage and move toward what will be a daunting task of recovery and repairs as waters slowly recede.

Over 30,000 people had to be rescued in parts of South Louisiana from massive, record-breaking flooding beginning Friday, Aug. 12, with heavy downpours that continued throughout the weekend.

To some New Orleaneans, this “historic flood event” is all too familiar. Nothing but rooftops are visible in some areas of the city. Loss of cell phone services prevented many residents from contacting their loved ones as 911 which was so inundated with calls, it slowed down emergency response efforts. Shelters were over-crowded; motorists were stranded on interstates in gridlocked traffic, and boats became the main mode of transportation after approximately 100 roads were closed throughout the state. And to add insult to injury, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) noted that an estimated 80 percent of Louisiana residents don’t have flood insurance, leaving some folks questioning how this can happen again to people who suffered loss in Hurricane Katrina?

Insurance commissioner Jim Donelon said, “People in many of the areas that remain underwater weren’t considered in a high-risk flooding area and weren’t required to carry flood insurance by their mortgage lenders. Also, if a home is paid off, flood insurance even in a high-risk area is at the discretion of the homeowner.”

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Exxon gas station near Flannery Rd. in Baton Rouge. Photo: Jabril Muhammad

After Gov. John Bel Edwards traveled to affected areas and saw the severity of the situation, he requested that President Barack Obama issue a disaster declaration for the entire state of Louisiana, Aug.14. Twenty parishes have been declared disaster areas with possibly more as recovery efforts are underway. Some of the hardest hit areas include, East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Helena, and Tangipahoa parishes.

CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam said that Baton Rouge received two months’ worth of rain in one day. He explained that on average, 5.82 inches of rain falls in August and twice that fell in Baton Rouge in a 24-hour period.

The Alton Sterling storm?

Many residents said they were caught off guard by how quickly the water rose, including one Baton Rouge native. “I looked out the window and it was like a lake in our front yard,” said Whitney Hall.

“My family and I packed a few things and left thinking the water would rise a little bit. A day later, our neighbor sent us a picture of the water up to our rooftop. We truly had no idea our home and everything in it would be lost,” she added.

“We are in a state of shock right now.

In some ways, this ordeal seems identical to what happened to people during Hurricane Katrina. Especially packing up things thinking you will return in a couple of days.”

Ms. Hall said she doesn’t believe in coincidences and that the city is going through a cleansing on account of what happened to Alton Sterling, the 37-year-old Black man shot and killed by Baton Rouge police July 5 and the long history of injustices against Blacks that exist in Louisiana. She also mentioned that she couldn’t help but notice that the areas most affected were majority White areas.

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House on Perkins Rd. in East Baton Rouge. Photo: Jabril Muhammad

The weather has been indiscriminate affecting unusual areas. According to FEMA, since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there have been 13 major disaster declarations for the state of Louisiana, including Hurricanes Rita, Gustav, Ike, and Isaac; tropical storm Lee, tornadoes, severe storms and flooding.

Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan has repeatedly warned these incidents of severe and catastrophic weather aren’t by happenstance and that these odd weather occurrences represent divine chastisement for historical ill-treatment of Blacks and the indigenous people in America.

His teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, always taught and prophesized that God’s greatest weapon against the enemy of a people is the forces of nature.

Earlier this spring, while on the popular radio program, The Breakfast Club, the Minister warned of increasing tornados, hail, flash floods and severe weather and that none of the presidential candidates can stop the wrath of God that is coming down on America.

“After this broadcast, the weather will intensify. I am not before you of myself; I am a warner from God to America and the nations of the Earth by God’s permission. God is destroying America by degrees with the forces of nature, which you have no power against. The Death Angel is in America as we speak. These natural disasters are going to increase,” said the Nation of Islam Minister.

Student Min. Abdul Rashid Muhammad of the Nation of Islam Baton Rouge Mosque said that after the death of Alton Sterling, the people of Baton Rouge cried out for justice but to no avail. “The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said, ‘watch the weather!’ We are witnessing the fulfillment of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s warning about these kind of conditions falling upon America as a result of the injustice afflicted on Black people,” continued Mr. Muhammad. Livingston Parish is one of the most affected areas and it’s where the majority of police officers live, he pointed out.

“I call it the ‘Alton Sterling Storm’,” said Sandra Sterling, Mr. Sterling’s aunt. “I know his spirit isn’t resting until he gets justice.” Ms. Sterling mentioned that there’s still no update from the Justice Department on Alton’s investigation. “I know they’re not worrying about me with everything going on in our city, but Alton still matters,” she added. She’s been helping those whose homes have been destroyed, but ultimately, she doesn’t want one tragedy to take precedence over the other.

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Nation of Islam members from Muhammad Mosque No. 65 help residents fill sandbags. Photo: Jabril Muhammad
Meteorologists and climatologists are scratching their heads wondering whether the record breaking rain is a rare event or a lasting shift. This type of event is only supposed to happen 1-in- 1,000 years, several weather experts pointed out. However, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Center reported that increased rainfall flooding is consistent with what they expect to see in the future according to climate models, which is used to study the dynamics of the climate system to the projections of future climate.

Clean up and recovery

President Obama directed FEMA administrator Craig Fugate on Aug. 17 to use all available resources to assist in the response and recovery. Several rivers have flooded far beyond record levels and some road ways still look like rivers. Coffins floated down a street in Denham Springs, La, a city four miles from Baton Rouge. Over 70,000 people have registered so far for individual assistance and 9,000 have filed flood insurance claims. According to the NOAA, this historic flooding is likely to be the second billiondollar weather disaster to impact Louisiana in 2016. The floods that occurred in March 2016 cost $1.3 billion in damages to more than 5,000 homes and businesses. With the amount of damages from the recent floods, costs will be well over a billion dollars.

“I woke up at 6 a.m. Sunday morning to knee high water. The phone lines were down and all of the evacuation numbers I had weren’t working,” said Brenda Perine who relocated to Baton Rouge as a result of Hurricane Katrina. “I called 911, but was told they had rescue boats in my area but if the water wasn’t deep enough they couldn’t come and get me and my 80-year-old mother. Yet, the water was too deep for me to drive in,” said Ms. Perine, the mother of this article’s writer.

“I am grateful to the brothers of the Nation of Islam, Nuridin, Jabril, and Amir Muhammad who got in their boat and risked their lives to come and rescue us,” she stated. “Instead of dropping us off to a nearby shelter, Brother Nuridin and his wife Sister Halimah welcomed me and my mother into their home and said that we could stay there until we secured a place to go.”

“Duty called,” said Jabril Muhammad, one of the rescuers of Ms. Perine and her elderly mother. “This is how we’ve been taught by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan to respond when our people are in need. We had already been out the day before helping others,” he added. “We found some rescues to be challenging not really knowing how deep the water was, but we said our prayers while in the boat, ‘our life and our death are all for Allah’ and then carried out our mission.”

Nuridin Muhammad sacrificed his health rescuing those who needed assistance. He was hospitalized briefly, but is now recuperating at home.

“I lost everything in Hurricane Katrina and now I’m going through the same thing in Baton Rouge,” said Florence James. “The difference between Katrina and these floods is that I knew before hand to evacuate, however, this time I had to jump in a boat in a matter of minutes grabbing only a few items,” she explained.

“I was brought to a shelter that was overcrowded, where there was limited space, no plugs to charge up my phone, and where I got limited sleep,” said Ms. James. “I’m grateful that I ended up at a church that had room for me and my husband. The feeling of not knowing when we can get back into our home or if we even have a home is the stressful part.”

Not much could be salvaged Deborah Muhammad’s newly furnished home. “I felt like Hagar of the Bible … kicked out of my home, so to speak, by the floods and thrusted into the wilderness. I didn’t know where to go or what to do. But soon I realized this was out of my control and I had to make Allah sufficient.”