School has not started due to disaster

Hello everyone. Sorry, but school has not started. It was supposed to have started on Wednesday, but it won't start until Monday, August 22, 2016.

I live in Southeast Louisiana, and we received torrential rains a week ago today, that has caused massive flooding. It is so severe, that we, as a state, lost many things.

Just in my parish alone, six people died, and over half of our citizens have lost their homes. Some of my friends have lost everything, while others have lost only vehicles, and still more had no problems at all.

In Denham Springs, close to Baton Rouge, nearly everyone lost their home. Homes have to be gutted down to the bare bones, or completely torn down and built again. Others, have to cut out their walls from just a foot above the floor to several feet above the floor. They will have to be re-dry walled.

We have what is called the Cajun Navy. It is a group of Cajuns who love to go fishing and each have their own boats. When the disaster hit, they got in their boats, and went and rescued people out of their homes. And not just people, they took their animals too.

This is the second severe flooding in this area of Louisiana in less than six months. The rain came down so hard and so fast, that it had nowhere to go. A lot of times, people in this area, don't keep their ditches cleared out of debris, so it is already standing full of water. Other times, like in my neighborhood, just the week before the flooding, the surrounding ditches had been cleaned out. They were ready for the flooding.  But did it help? No, it came just too fast and the ditches are small, so flood we did.

I work at Southeastern Louisiana University as an Administrative Assistant. The university got the students who were on campus together, asked them to volunteer to clean up, and they did.  Wednesday and Thursday, students went out in groups around our parish and the surrounding area and helped with the recovery effort. They pulled out damaged furniture, carpeting, personal items and whatever else was needed. Then they helped to clean up the homes, and worked in the yard. We are a resilient state, but only so much can be done. We need help.

I am asking everyone who reads my blog to please pray for the people of Southeastern Louisiana, that we may be able to recover, and to do so quickly.