MORE SEEK SHELTER- Growing numbers of Louisiana residents are turning to the state to find a place to stay after Hurricane Laura ravaged southwestern parishes. Gov. John Bel Edwards said Tuesday that more than 11,000 people are being sheltered by the state. The vast majority are staying in hotels largely in New Orleans, but also in Baton Rouge and Shreveport. Edwards says the numbers tick upward each day. The Democratic governor says that's because people realize their homes are currently uninhabitable.
"What's driving people to the shelter is some combination of their home not being safe, habitable, and secure and not having power and not having water," Edwards explained. "And for many people in our shelters it's going to be all three."
State officials say more than 260,000 utility customers in Louisiana remain without power while 600,000 people either have no water or on boil water advisories. Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana spent time visiting some of the parishes most affected by Hurricane Laura yesterday. During a stop in Rapides Parish, Kennedy took some Facebook time for a short press conference to explain the status of things.
"We've been chewed up, spit out and stepped on," Kennedy said. "This is the worst storm I'd had ever seen, ever. But failure is not getting knocked down, failure is not getting up and we in Louisiana, we're tough as a boot. We're going to show the world what it's like to be a Louisianian and an American."
Originally six Louisiana parishes were declared for emergency disaster relief by FEMA, three additional parishes Acadia, Ouachita, and Vermillion were added And in a press statement released late Tuesday night Senator Kennedy announced Rapides Parish has also been added to the federal disaster declaration. Grant, Jackson, Natchitoches, Sabine and Winn Parishes have been granted individual disaster assistance.
