Ike Coverage: Ike does serious damage far from Texas

While the post-Ike news coverage has focused largely on the destruction wrought in Galveston and Houston, the storm also caused extensive damage to the coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama -- even into the panhandle of Florida.
 

Ike's floodwaters are covering communities across coastal Louisiana
that were already reeling from Gustav. (LEAN photo)

Louisiana Environmental Action Network technical advisor Wilma Subra, who also performed damage assessments in the wake of Gustav, is now reporting on the damage done by Ike in coastal communities across her state. One of the areas hit hard was Louisiana's Terrebonne Parish, which was already devastated by Gustav. Subra writes:

By Friday afternoon as Hurricane Ike churned through the Gulf of Mexico, catastrophic events began to occur along the levees in lower Terrebonne Parish. The communities of Chauvin, Isle de Jean Charles, Montegut, Pointe aux Chenes, Cocodrie and Dulac were flooding. Levee breaches and overtopping were occurring through out the area. Community members worked to hold back the waters by attempting to control the levee breaches. Louisiana Environmental Action Network provided life preservers for community members to use as they toiled against the storm surge waters. On Saturday, September 13, 2008 the storm surge waters were continuing to rise, the communities were flooded, and structures that had been rebuilt after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, damaged by the winds of Hurricane Gustav were completely inundated by Hurricane Ike.

Further east in Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, houses and businesses that had been rebuilt and elevated after Katrina were flooded again by Ike, Subra reports. Search and rescue teams were in the area over the weekend carrying stranded people to safety.