{At least five people dead and more than 20,000 rescued in US state amid predictions of more rain from storm system.}<\/p>\n
US President Barack Obama has issued a disaster declaration for the state of Louisiana, where at least five people have died and emergency crews have rescued more than 20,000 people stranded by unprecedented flooding.<\/p>\n
Obama’s announcement on Sunday came as John Bel Edwards, Louisiana’s governor, said residents had been pulled from swamped cars, flooded homes and threatened hospitals across the southern part of the state.<\/p>\n
The already soaked region is expected to get more rain from a storm system stretching from the Gulf Coast to the Ohio Valley.<\/p>\n
While the brunt of the storm that brought torrential rains was moving west towards Texas, Louisiana residents are told to remain cautious. <\/p>\n
“Even with the sunshine out today intermittently, the waters are going to continue to rise in many areas, so this is no time to let the guard down,” Edwards said.<\/p>\n
The initial declaration makes federal aid available in the parishes of East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Helena and Tangipahoa.<\/p>\n
About 5,000 people had been forced to sleep in shelters overnight around the state on Saturday. <\/p>\n
Colonel Michael Edmonson of Louisiana State Police said helicopters were transporting food and water to those still trapped by floods.<\/p>\n
About 1,700 members of the Louisiana National Guard have been deployed for rescue efforts.<\/p>\n
Even as the state grappled with high waters, the National Weather Service forecast heavy rain from the Gulf Coast as far north as the Ohio Valley through Monday, with a threat of flash flooding.<\/p>\n
A flash flood watch was in place until Monday morning for Houston, where rains killed at least eight people in late April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{At least five people dead and more than 20,000 rescued in US state amid predictions of more rain from storm system.} US President Barack Obama has issued a disaster declaration for the state of Louisiana, where at least five people have died and emergency crews have rescued more than 20,000 people stranded by unprecedented flooding. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-27734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27734"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=27734"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=27734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}