A Louisiana update: We are expecting serious flooding on the Sabine River, which is the boundary between Texas and Louisiana. This happened in March of 2016 and it closed Interstate Ten with water over it near Orange, TX.
I live in Sulphur, LA which is 20 miles from the Texas border and work in Lake Charles (6 miles from Sulphur). Sulphur is the first big exit in Louisiana. My wife is at Wal-mart and tells me the place is just swamped with Texans right now. Most of whom made it here to get supplies. Beaumont is without power and water right now so they are here shopping. Others are staying here. All hotels are full. Lake Charles is a casino town so we have lots of hotels, so there are a lot of people staying here.
We have two shelters, which are really just lily pads for evacuees. We don't house victims long-term here because we are in a hurricane impact zone, so they get them here, some of them straight from the rooftops in Orange and Port Arthur and get them dry clothes, medical attention and food. We register them so they can be tracked and then send them to shelters in North Louisiana (outside of the impact zone). So far we have had 6-8000 come through the system.
Houston is still getting all the attention on TV but the Golden Triangle area of Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange actually had worse flooding and higher rainfall totals. It is an unbelievable disaster there. Houston is drying out, while they are still finding people stranded in the Golden Triangle.
I am finally slowing down. In my public information duties I have been interviewed by the New York Times, Reuters, Associated Press, Fox Business Channel, CNN, Times Picayune, and others. These were all just status update interviews although I may have been quoted in some of them. I am not sure. I had arranged for our Emergency Operations Director to be interviewed by phone live on the Fox Business Channel Wednesday. He was supposed to be on at 5:45 pm Central time. He told me to make sure to remind him or he would forget. Sure enough, at 5:30 the governor pops in and they go to one of the shelters. I called the Fox guys and said I didn't think he would be available for the interview. The show was underway so the producer asked if I could pinch hit. I said sure as long as they didn't mind the JV team. So he puts me on hold and says I will go live in a minute. I hurriedly texted my wife to turn on the tv to Fox Business channel, that I would be on in a minute. A minute goes by, then two, then three and I knew something was up. The producer gets on the line and says "Sorry, we had a live cut-in from a field reporter and don't need you now." I get home a little while later and my wife tells me right after I texted her they went to an interview near the Texas border with a crazy victim with more tattoos than teeth. He was like the "Ain't nobody got time for that" guy. Where do they find these people? Anyway, dude stole my air time, but I hope he's doing ok.
