AP, Lousiana :
Denham Springs, Louisiana, USA: Keisha Taylor, a 37-year-old mother of four, has spent three nights in two different shelters since her family fled the flooding at their Baton Rouge apartment complex. And she doesn’t know how many more nights they will be sleeping on cots inside the downtown arena where hundreds sought shelter.
Taylor probably could stay with relatives in White Castle, a town about 30 miles west of Louisiana’s capital city, but three of her kids are enrolled in Baton Rouge schools that could reopen next week.
“This is where I live. I need to be home,” she said.
Taylor is one of thousands of people across southern Louisiana displaced by catastrophic flooding and now struggling with where to live.
With an estimated 40,000 homes damaged by deadly flooding, Louisiana could be looking at its biggest housing crunch since the miserable, bumbling aftermath of Hurricane Katrina a decade ago.
For the Baton Rouge area, it was a blow on top of what has already been a tough summer starting with the shooting death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling on July 5. The death of Sterling, a black man, at the hands of two white police officers incited widespread protests in which nearly 200 people were arrested.
Then on July 17, a lone gunman shot and killed three law enforcement officers and wounded three others outside a Baton Rouge convenience store. The suspect, Gavin Long, an army veteran from Kansas City, Missouri, was killed by police. The dead officers all had lived in the area of Denham Springs, a quiet bedroom community near Baton Rouge. Then the rains hit.
Denham Springs, Louisiana, USA: Keisha Taylor, a 37-year-old mother of four, has spent three nights in two different shelters since her family fled the flooding at their Baton Rouge apartment complex. And she doesn’t know how many more nights they will be sleeping on cots inside the downtown arena where hundreds sought shelter.
Taylor probably could stay with relatives in White Castle, a town about 30 miles west of Louisiana’s capital city, but three of her kids are enrolled in Baton Rouge schools that could reopen next week.
“This is where I live. I need to be home,” she said.
Taylor is one of thousands of people across southern Louisiana displaced by catastrophic flooding and now struggling with where to live.
With an estimated 40,000 homes damaged by deadly flooding, Louisiana could be looking at its biggest housing crunch since the miserable, bumbling aftermath of Hurricane Katrina a decade ago.
For the Baton Rouge area, it was a blow on top of what has already been a tough summer starting with the shooting death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling on July 5. The death of Sterling, a black man, at the hands of two white police officers incited widespread protests in which nearly 200 people were arrested.
Then on July 17, a lone gunman shot and killed three law enforcement officers and wounded three others outside a Baton Rouge convenience store. The suspect, Gavin Long, an army veteran from Kansas City, Missouri, was killed by police. The dead officers all had lived in the area of Denham Springs, a quiet bedroom community near Baton Rouge. Then the rains hit.
