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Subscribe to RSSMSNBC's Tamron Hall speaks with Jesse Shaffer, who is working with others to rescue people trapped by floods in their Louisiana homes.
Updated at 6:57 p.m. ET: A Louisiana father-and-son team is being credited with rescuing dozens of people in the low-lying Plaquemines Parish on Wednesday as Isaac made its way inland from the Gulf of Mexico.
“There was a family of five on a trailer with about one foot left before they were to go under, and they were screaming away,” Jesse Shaffer Jr. of Braithwaite told MSNBC's Tamron Hall.
“I’ve seen about 60 rescues today and that’s including about 30 animals,” he said.
Across the Gulf Coast, residents abandoned their homes, with some heading to evacuation centers to ride out the storm. Others weren't as fortunate. The cyclone, downgraded to a tropical storm Wednesday afternoon, threatened to flood towns in Louisiana and Mississippi with more rain and storm surges.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said about 2,000 residents were ordered to evacuate, but only half left before Isaac made landfall late Tuesday. At least 118 people were rescued in Plaquemines, including 25 trapped on their roofs, authorities said.
Shaffer was among a tireless crew to save several residents in the east bank, Nungesser told The Times-Picayune in New Orleans.
Levees in the east bank are just over 8 feet high, while storm surges have been estimated as high as 14 feet. The Mississippi River cuts the parish in two as it flows to the Gulf of Mexico. One rescue included a woman and her 5-month-old baby, both plucked from a rooftop, Nungesser said.
Shaffer, 25, his 53-year-old father, Jesse Shaffer Sr., and two other men headed out on boats to reach residents trapped or stranded by the rising water, The Times-Picayune reported.
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“I was watching the water all day yesterday and then we got the surge around 1 and 1:30 last night,” the younger Shaffer told MSNBC. He launched his boat from a service road and headed into this submerged community before dawn.
Joshua Brockhaus, an electrician who lives in the flooded area between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico, also helped rescue neighbors in his boat. "I'm getting text messages from all over asking for help," Brockhaus told the AP. "I'm dropping my dogs off, and I'm going back out there."
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A downgraded Isaac floods coastal communities and forces new evacuations, but levees still hold.
‘Not used to evacuating’
In Houma, La., Doug Bourg was busy making sure families streaming into the Houma Municipal Auditorium, the official evacuation center for Terrebonne Parish, had the latest information on Isaac.
“At the moment, we have 194 people here at the center,” Bourg told NBC News. Bourg, an administrative assistant to the Terrebonne Parish president, said each family was advised to bring enough food for at least 72 hours.
Dominica Knight, a 23-year-old mother of two, spent the evening at the center.
"I have kids and they both have asthma," she told The Associated Press, as she held her 11-month-old baby in one arm while holding onto her 2-year-old with her free hand. She said she didn't want to be without electricity or away from emergency assistance with Isaac near.
“I'm not used to evacuating," she told the AP.
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Sandbagging efforts
Faced with pelting rain, winds and rising water, Lafitte Mayor Tim Kerner led a sandbagging effort in his community to build a last-minute extra line of defense, he told the Times-Picayune. Members of the National Guard were expected to assist in the effort.
At the zoo, remembering Katrina
Seven years ago, when Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans, former Audubon Zoo worker Dan Maloney was sleeping next to the reptile house, First Coast News reported. Creepy perhaps, but it was the highest ground in the zoo.
He and a staff of 15 zookeepers ended up living at the zoo for two months, caring for the animals even as food supplies dwindled. Ultimately, he is proud of saying, only four animals died. Two were otters, the BBC reported at the time; an alligator also escaped, although at the time Maloney was confident the alligator would return.
As Hurricane Isaac ripped through the city on the seventh anniversary of Katrina, Maloney, who now works at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in Mississippi, hoped for the best and recalled, with some fondness, earlier efforts. The zoo employees organized armed patrols, First Coast News reported, and built their own shower.
"The animals can't go so we have to stay,” Maloney told First Coast News. “That's how it works. That's the job we signed up to do and that was our mission to make sure they came through it okay.”
Abuzz in Isaac’s wake
Hurricane Isaac held Floridian Ismay Williams captive in her own home – not because of flooding or power outages but because it moved a small colony of bees into her home.
"I have intimidating problems with them. I'm scared they will sting you," Williams told NBC-2 in southwest Florida. "I wouldn't want 60,000 bees to get angry with me."
And so Keith Councell, a homegrown bee keeper from the area, checked out her home. He sealed a hole the bees were using as an entryway, making sure they could only exit.
In Cape Coral, Fla., Richard Chapelle found 10,000 honeybees lounging on the grass in his backyard, brought there, apparently, by wind and rain from the storm.
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Leave a Comment:
These folks have known Issac was coming for days. Why are we having to rescue so many people? More importantly, why are we paying to have good people risk their lives to rescue folks who were too stupid to get out when warned. It's not like this is the first time this has ever happened. The less people we rescue this storm, the less stupid people we would be inclined to rescue during the next one.
This happens in every storm. You have idiot people who ignore evacuation orders and then cry about having to wait for hours to be rescued and whine about the lack of help. Why should people have to put their lives at risk to go rescue people who were too stupid to obey an evacuation order and ended up with their lives at risk?!?! My feeling is that is you ignore an evacuation order then you are on your own. If you drown or die from exposure that is your own fault for not obeying the order to get the hell out of the danger area. If you need help to get out then ask for it, but do not make the decision to ride out the storm and then complain when no one comes the get your stupid ass when things turn out worse then you expected.
Why aren't they charged for their rescue if they don't understand the word "EVACUATE"? Tax payers shouldn't have to foot the bill for this kind of idiocy.
Your president federalized this issue because of the media hype, just so it wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass if grandma Johnson got swept away by hurricane Isaac. He wouldn't do anything at all if Hurricane Katrina never made landfall and you know that's the truth.
Good people who have the guts to go out and put it on the line for others do not criticize and make judgments, they just do it. Maybe some of you should take a lesson from that!!!!
Uhtred, The guy in the White House doesn't give a rats a$$ about the storm... unless it gets in the way of a fund raiser or hurts his chance for another appearance on The View, lol!
Hey Ryan--if Obama is "my" President, who is yours? You a non-American or even anti-American?
We rescue other human being no matter how stupid they are because we aren't that cruel. We aren't going to let people die if we can save them. But yeah these folks are pretty stupid and lucky to be alive. Hopefully, most people evacuated as they should have.
Being a very poor area, there is the possibility that some of them could not afford to evacuate or had no way to leave.
tbrownjt. i remember a picture from katrina, of massive amounts of school buses sitting in water. The mayor and or governor could have used those buses to move people out. they did not and then conveniently went to houston and bitzhed about the lack of federal help.
the way its supposed to work is city government does all it can, and can request help from the county. Then they request help from the state. the state uses its emergency management program and if bad enough activates the national guard. the federal government is called in by the state, when the state cannot handle the problem. The only way the fed can move in, if the state is making a mess of it is martial law. And luckily that aint happened recently. The federal government is not allowed to just jump in there.
there were lots of mistakes by during katrina.
Fer instance, Just say several days in advance of katrinas landfall, the state requested transportation for the evacuation. And agreed to federals (US Army) arriving armed with rifles with trucks and buses to transport civilians North East or West out of the path of the tornado. Temporary camps could have been set up (the army has a lot of tents) in safe areas with food (army has a lot of mess trucks) and evacuated the civilians.
This is not a violation of the posse comitatus act. If the state requests aid, and authorized the Army to be used to move civilians AND authorized the army to enforce STATE LAWS, then there is no violation.
So if that request were made, how long do you think it would take, Fort Hood, Fort Polk, Fort Benning, etc to get trucks and supplies there. No time. When i was in germany we had two hours from the time of an alert, (that the russians were coming to play), to be off the installation with all our play toys.
So far i have not heard of one death, however, after katrina, it really bothers me, that apparently the same people, stayed for the darwin parties, and now are screaming for help. Well we should, cant fix stupid though. I guess people figure they are going to live forever.
Destroyed roads, bridges, and buildings can be fixed. If someones dead, you cant fix that. obviously.
Blessings to the father and son team who saved so many lives. Americans residing in the Gulf States and in harm's way require our prayers rather than being chastised for needing help.
There but for the grace of God, go I.
Regardless is people in LA were affected directly by Katrina, what lesson here wasn't learned as far as evacuating goes? I remember the fire in the Oakland Hills in CA back in the 1990's, watching and worrying if it was going to come over the ridge. People thought it wouldn't be an issue as far as evacuating. They were proven wrong and a number of them burned to death trying to flee. Fast forward a decade or so,..............I live in the mountains now and despite my first "wildfire experience" being in a more urban environment, vs. a rural one, you can bet we have an evacuation plan in place here. I just don't get why people don't think "It can happen to them". Every person who had the ability to evacuate, but CHOSE NOT TO, and then had to end up being rescued, should be handed a bill or given a fine. Shame on them for putting others at risk to rescue their STUPID A$$e$............
This thing was barely a hurricane at Cat 1., Katrina was a Cat 5 hurricane with 6 being the strongest. Yeah, I would probably leave too if I lived there but this hurricane isn't bringing nearly the same strength as Katrina. It costs money to uproot your family and stay up north for a few days, some people just can't afford it in this economy.
Thank you Ryan for putting a civil spin on this. I just knew this story would provoke a bunch of responses from people talking bad about other people. Shame on those who can only talk bad about others.
After Katrina, they weren't allow back into Plaquemines parrish for 3 weeks. In that time, the little water they had (4 inches) had wicked up their walls and furniture and ruined everything in their homes from mold. Another reason that they didn't leave this time - especially since they were told it would be a 3 hour storm event. Unfortunately it was 12 feet of water this time.
Ryan: spend a few bucks or end up dead. Your choice. I'm tired of my tax dollars supporting stupid southerners.
Actually Ryan...you are a hair off in your meteorology :)
Katrina strengthened to a CAT 5 while still in the GOM but she made landfall in Louisiana as a CAT 4. CAT 5 is the highest category. A storm strengthening to a CAT 5 rarely sustains that status for long and landfalling CAT 5s are not a common occurrence and in fact only 3 CAT5s have made landfall as CAT5s in the past 100 years. (Camille in '69, Charley in '04 and an unnamed strom in 1935 that went through the Keys).
It's all fine and well to say "spend a few bucks," and I've evacuated more than once for hurricane threats, but if you just plain don't HAVE those few bucks in the bank, where do you think they're going to come from? I doubt anyone's going to put gas in your car for free because there's a storm coming and you're broke.
The situation is sad. Put the blame on the storm, or mother nature. Some people don't have the knowledge or ability to evacuate. Just pray that it never happens to you, your family , etc: - any kind of evacuation...and God bless the people helping other people. and....as far as the election and candidates, I didn't see the Republicans even mentioning this at their convention but I did see Pres. Obama declaring a state of emergency (that had NOTHING to do with the election), just the right thing to do.
It's obvious this is an election year. Here we have this powerful, very American story about the desire to help verses the desire to stand up to the elements, and you idiots are talking about politicians. Blah.
I wonder what the word 'mandatory' means when they use it in the phrase MANDATORY EVACUATIONS?
Some people, seriously.
Mandatory means that nobody will come to your rescue until it's safe to do so if you choose to stay.
They should put these people on the Most Stupidest People videos
Have you ever heard the way they talk? They should get 1st prize
Do not allow them to procreate. there are already too many overweight, undereducated, toothless people down there.
Save the pets, screw the ignorant people who IGNORED evacuation ORDERS.
Wow! Florida, you've never made a mistake. Maybe these people aren't even the brightest, maybe they didn't make a good decision. But, I have a lot more respect for them then someone like you who would have them die while saving an animal!
It's not an order because it wasn't mandatory. What, are Americans living under military law now?
I would agree with you on that.The humans chose to ignore the danger they were warned of.The pets have no choice but to stay with their ignorant owners or be left behind by the selfish people who only chose to save themselves.I would leave and take my dogs,just drive as far as possible to higher ground.
Sure,some didnt leave because they didnt have the means.Too poor to afford the gas or without a vehicle at all but its always the ones at the mercy of the stupid who suffer the most-ie children and animals.
Why? Why are these people still there when they were told to evaculate? Others are risking their lives to save these fools. Pure stupid to think you are smarter than any storm. Pure stupid!
And what exactly is Isaac's IQ??????
Well, I'm out. All you who want to sit here and talk down about others and call people stupid, and wish them dead, etc. Enjoy the company with each other.
Whawwwneeee babies as usual. is that jerk Nagin still in office? He prob hijack a bus.
I think alot of these people who did not evacuate had no place to go, others did not want to leave there property and worldly belongings as that is all they have. These are poor people and do not have a lot of money and with Issac being a category one decided to brave it out, Cagens are tough and brave people and if you had no place to go and no money to go there dying at home seems to be as good as any other place. These are good and kind people, they don't have much but what they have they hold on to, most have a heart of gold and even being very poor are willing to help others. Mandatory does not mean much to people who can not afford home insurance, they stay and protect what little they have. God Bless those who have again lost everything, but with your strong perseverance and hard work ethics you will once again survive. Good Luck and i hope they did not raise the gas prices on you all down there.
You mean "Cajuns"? Tough, brave and stupid. And my Yankee tax dollars are spent to rescue their sorry butts. When your house is under 8' of water tell me what you are going to protect and save. Nothing worth anything.
Katrina was followed by another hurricane that hit Texas. So early in the season .
It doesn't take hardly any imagination or mental effort to understand why some people were forced to or decided to risk to stay staying in now flooded areas.
It doesn't take hardly any maturity either to empathize with the plight of those people.
It does take some courage and selflessness to extend a helping hand.
Those characteristics are what make us civilized and humane. However, stories abound of animals that made heroic efforts to save people.
(c) 2012
Everyone keeps referring back to Katrina, as if there was never a hurricane before or after that deserves the name huuricane. I was in Houston(NE) when Alicia came through and in Rock Hill, SC when Hugo came through. I've been through many storms. I seriously believe we who live inland from a costal area are much more aware of the dangers of severe weather, and prepare better to face the consequences. There are always consequences! I lost everything I owned in Hugo. I was a single mother of 2 children, and received NO child support, yet I knew one of the priorities of my life was INSURANCE. What was irreplacable, books, pictures, etc., were simply gone; but at least I had enough from the renter's insurance to get us another place to live and support us while we got back on our feet. Yes, my friends and family helped also, but the federal government did NOT,, and I don't recall anybody complaining about it. It's all about responsibility. As a mother of 2 children, I assure you, that if I knew a hurricane was going to landfall within 200 miles of my home, I would have packed a small bag, and started walking my children to safety. And if I was that poor, I certainly would not be feeding a pet at the expense of my children. And I do believe in extending a helping hand to those who NEED it, but that should be at my discretion not the government's.
American tax payers should not spend a dime on these people if you are dumb enough to build your life there then you pay for it.
“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Albert Einstein
look dummies the alert was there for a reason, we watch the storm for a reason, and if you can understand simple english WHEN THEY SAY GET OUT THEY MEAN GET OUT FOR A REASON!!!!!!!!!
and you wonder why people call the south inbred and stupid?
$10 billion dollars for an 8' levee !! A category 1 hurricane produces a 14' wall of water and all hell breaks loose like it did 7 years ago. Let's spend another $10 billion dollars and raise the wall a couple more feet and pray like hell New Orleans never sees a category 2 hurricane. Does anyone see a problem here? This is absolute insanity. As for those who CHOSE to stay, how long can you tread water? Further insanity.
Michael...this WASN'T New Orleans. New Orleans isn't the only city in Louisiana.
People like michael feel they have to say something even if they don't know what they are talking about.
If there was a sane policy regarding storm safety, there wouldn't have been any rescuers risking their lives to hear these stupid peckerwoods screaming. Society should let Darwin's law apply in cases like this.
I'll bet you lunch for a month that most of these idiots who were rescued are Tea Party, anti-government types. Yet here comes government to save their sorry butts. Reminds me of a great cartoon. House almost completely submerged under flood water. Along comes a boat with the letters "FEMA" on it. The stranded couple shout: "thank heavens a government bureaucrat." Under the 8' of water is an almost billboard sized sign: "Get the government off of our backs."
God be with all the people and poor creatures in the path of this disaster.
Ok...I'm going to provide some advice. My qualifications are - I'm a stormwater engineer with 30 years experience. Here it is:
If you live within 20 miles of the coast, and are at an elevation of less than 30' above mean seal level, leave for every hurricane. I don't care if it's a mandatory evacuation or not. Don't be stupid. Go hang out with friends, or go hang out at a shelter. Use common sense. Duh.
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If they are staying because they don't want to leave their pets, well I can understand, not like some of this trash that leave them behind to die like you hear all the time. I know it's a pain to get them, but it softens my anger if they want to be with their pets. I don't think the shelters take them.
Kathleen not sure were they are at but in coastal South Carolina they always set up shelters that are pet friendly.
...it's tough to feel sympathy for people who are told in advance to evacuate because of an approaching storm, who boast to the media that they will ride out the storm, and then complain that they weren't rescued quickly enough (by people who often risk their own lives for these--citizens)!
Apparently the word "MANDATORY" in the phrase "Mandatory Evacuation" has the same meaningless effect as the word "ILLEGAL" in the phrase "Illegal Aliens".......seriously, I can see how some of these people just had nowhere to go. They literally live from paycheck to paycheck and have no financial means to flee. They have no vehicles and they walk to work at a low paying local job.....its a vicious cycle that they just can't get out of. It works for most of them but when something like a hurricane comes along their whole world is washed away.
Looking at the pictures it is obvious that these folks don't have a lot of resources. As a volunteer fire fighter I see tragedies strike people in situations like this very often. If they had the means to do something different they probably would. A lot of their bravado is just covering up the fact that they don't have choices and in many instances hides the embarrassment they feel. I don't have any problem rescuing these folks.