Your guide to LSU AgCenter online resources that help you recover from the immediate impacts and rebuild your homes and lives.

HURRICANE ISAAC made landfall as a Cat 1 Hurricane on
August 28.  It stalled over the warm marsh and continued to pound Louisiana and Mississippi with rain and wind for three days. Heavy rains and the unusual surge patterns caused flooding in many places that normally do not flood. Thousands of homes have been affected. The intense rain resulted in water being released down the Tangipahoa River from a lake in Mississippi. This release, designed to prevent total dam failure, sent record levels of water down the river to Louisiana. 

Use these links to access these LSU AgCenter resources

Recovery and Rebuilding Information Online 

LSU AgCenter Disaster Recovery Publications  

LaHouse - Showcase Home and Programs 

 

Louisiana Presidential Disaster Declaration: DR-4080
Declared August 29, 2012

Updates and Recovery Centers 

Map showing declared parishes  (750KB PDF)

Apply for Federal Assistance 

Your Flood Zone & Ground Elevation

LSU AgCenter Isaac News

Declared parishes and Assistance Available

Individual Assistance: 24 Parishes as of Oct 1.  Federal funding is available to affected individuals in Allen, Ascension, Assumption, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston, Morehouse, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. Helena, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Martin, St. Mary, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, Washington and West Feliciana parishes. Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and households recover from the effects of the disaster. Individuals and households who sustained losses in the designated county can begin applying for assistance by registering online at http://www.disasterassistance.gov , by web enabled mobile device at m.fema.gov.

Public Assistance: The parishes of Acadia, Allen, Ascension, Assumption, Avoyelles, Cameron, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Franklin, Iberia, Iberville, Jefferson, Jefferson Davis, Lafourche, Livingston, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Orleans, Ouachita, Plaquemines, Pointe Coupee, Rapides, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. Helena, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Martin, St. Mary, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, Vermilion, Washington, and West Baton Rouge for debris removal and emergency protective measures (Categories A and B), including direct federal assistance, under the Public Assistance program at 75 percent federal funding.

State and Federal Resources 

• Louisiana Disaster Declaration for Isaac (DR-4080) - lists eligible parishes, recovery centers and assistance
• Visit emergency.la.gov for road closures and state proclamations, press releases and updates.
• Visit parish emergency management websites for locally relevant information.
• View Pacific and Atlantic tropical activity at the National Hurricane Center web site.
• River Forecast Center of the National Weather Service 

How high the water?  How low your property?

Flooding will arise as a combination of storm surge and rain that falls where you are or upstream of your location. Your best source of  information for how high the flood will be in your area is your parish emergency manager . If that information is provided to the LSU AgCenter with appropriate authorization, we will place it in our online mapping system.

River stage and forecast information is provided by the National Weather Service River Forecast Centers (NWS RFCs).  The RFC responsible for Louisiana is the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center (LMRFC) , located in Slidell, Louisiana. It should be noted that these forecasts are not provided in much of southeast Louisiana inside levee systems where there are no rivers and streams. It should be noted, also, that the extent to which the gauge forecasts include surge effects is not known. 

The LSU AgCenter has two mapping services/sites that ANYONE can use to find ground elevation at ANY spot in Louisiana. If you are given a forecast for the flood level "at your place," you can subtract the ground elevation to estimate flood depth. One of these sites also shows the Flood Insurance Rate Maps for your area. These are not historic flooding maps, and they are not flood forecast maps, but they do show you if you are in or near one of the most floodprone areas. 

• Using Interactive Maps to Find Ground Elevation : Detailed instructions with tips for interpreting map and gauge data.
• Using Flood Maps When Waters are Rising : See if your property is in an identified flood hazard area.

Prepare and Prevent Damage in future events

Preventing Flood Damage   (includes emergency and permanent methods, with videos)You can protect your building from shallow flooding.  Emergency measures

Are you Ready?   Grabbing your essential documents; stocking up on food, water, medicines; making a family disaster plan; talking to the children; and other steps you take to get ready for evacuating or living primitively at home after the disaster and finding each other if you get separated in the disaster.
 
Preparedness for Livestock    Fact sheets for beef, dairy, goat, sheep and horse producers, and on horse boarding facilities.
Animal Response Hotline – Small Animals and Horses only.  Help or Volunteer   LVMA/LaSART

It is important for people in Louisiana to understand that the flood risk they know from official tools (the effective Flood Insurance Rate Maps, or FIRMs), may be understated. FIRMs are used in real estate and insurance transactions once they have been adopted. Newer information is available in the form of preliminary, post-Katrina/Rita FIRMS that have not been adopted for official use. Preliminary FIRMs can be viewed - over effective FIRMs, road maps and satellite images, and with ground elevation data - through http://www.lsuagcenter.com/FloodMaps. Parishes that have map changes pending (preliminary maps) are shown on the state index map as "striped."