LaPLACE, La. — State law enforcement officers and National Guardsmen spent Thursday running rescue missions by boat and truck to help residents stranded by rising floodwaters in the aftermath of Isaac.
At the River Forest development here, scores of residents saw water enter their homes, often rising 2 to 4 feet. Throughout the neighborhood, trucks and cars were partially submerged where residents parked them or were stopped in their efforts to drive out.
The water began to recede a bit by afternoon, but many residents were still seeking pumps or using old-fashioned buckets to empty water from their homes, and the streets remained covered with water too high to travel through by car or truck.
"We're getting calls coming in, lots of folks stranded in their homes,'' said Lt. Scott Mathews of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement, a state agency with police powers.
The governor's office said 3,000 trapped by flooding needed rescue in LaPlace, and at least 1,500 had been evacuated. The state dispatched 89 buses to drive residents, including elderly people in an assisted living facility, to shelters in Alexandria and Shreveport.
Across the River Forest neighborhood, ripped up carpeting and living-room furniture was piled outside. A few lucky homeowners whose property had a 3 feet or so higher grade than the rest of the homes managed to escape with little damage.
Sisters LesliBoucvalt and Lori Noel said they had to abandon their trucks in the neighborhood when they could not pass through rising waters as they were leaving their parents' home. The family was removed by rescuers and taken to a shopping center on Highway 61, where dozens of buses were being used to transport displaced people to shelters.
The sisters said they were back checking on the home and belongings.
"I was with my parents when the water started coming in,'' Noel said. "We called 911 and they got us to the buses.''
"We had 3 or 3½ feet of water,'' Boucvalt said. "We came (back) to see the neighborhood.''
They and dozens of other residents waded barefoot and in shorts through water as high as chest level along Nottingham Road. .
The flooding was a result of heavy rainfall and a storm surge that sent waters from Lake Pontchartrain into Lake Maurepas and then across swampland into the low-lying residential neighborhood.
Many residents returned Thursday as heavy rains fell sporadically, riding flat-bottomed motorboats or walking motorless boats to their homes to retrieve belongings. One man retrieved his cat, which screamed constant protests from a metal cage as it took a boat ride to safety. Another towed suitcases on floating pieces of insulating foam.
"It's pretty horrible,'' Noel said. "We pulled out all the baby stuff and her (Boucvalt's) wedding stuff.''
Sgt. Marcus Constance of Pollack, La., and Sgt. Dusty Rhodes, of New Iberia, La., both of the Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement agency, towed their state motorboat into the neighborhood's flooded main road before launching the boat from a driveway and slowly motoring to the farthest end of Nottingham Road.
They were answering a 911 distress call, but by the time they got there, the residents were gone. A search turned up only pet birds and, seeking shelter on the front porch, an armadillo who made clear he or she wished not to be disturbed. They said the 911 rescue calls often turn out to be fruitless because people have found their way out by themselves, but that officers check on every call.
Many people came into the neighborhood to look for relatives. Wayne Jones waded shirtless through the street. "I'm fine,'' he said. "But I don't know where my family is.''
