Downpour Leaves 5 Dead in Louisiana

A storm of Amazon rain-forest proportions dumped up to 18 inches of rain in only six hours, leaving five people dead and hundreds of homes and businesses flooded in New Orleans and eight surrounding parishes.

Gov. Edwin W. Edwards declared an emergency and sent National Guard troops to help in some areas. More rain was forecast, even though normal rainfall for all of May is only about five inches.

“I did some research in the Amazon. . . . It rains like this in the Brazilian Amazon,” said Timmons Roberts, a New Orleans sociologist.

The city’s Mercy-Baptist Hospital sat in the middle of a lake, and hospital workers wading in chest-deep water ferried patients and employees in flat-bottom boats. The hospital keeps skiffs in the basement in case of flooding.

The high water had little effect on most tourist spots, such as the French Quarter, which occupies one of the city’s highest points.

However, Harrah’s brand-new casino at the Municipal Auditorium shut down during the night after water leaked through the roof and the basement filled with water, threatening electrical equipment.

Enough water seeped into one French Quarter hotel to chase out Federal Emergency Management Agency officials in town for a hurricane exercise and a meeting. Many dropped out of the exercise to handle the real emergency.

Hurricanes tend to dump a lot of water at once but usually move on quickly. The exceptions may dump as much as Monday night’s storms but take several days to do so.

About 800 to 1,000 people had been stranded at New Orleans International Airport because access roads were flooded, but flights resumed late Tuesday morning.

In New Orleans, two bodies were found in a flooded underpass, a man fell to his death into a canal and a fourth person died of a heart attack while bailing out his car, police said. The mayor’s office said a fifth person also drowned.

New Orleans is built on drained swamps, and many parts of the city are below sea level. Underground water is so close to the surface that the dead must be put in above-ground mausoleums.

“I didn’t have nothing before, now I don’t even have that,” cried 76-year-old Gracie Lewis, who stood in front of her dilapidated home with fresh raindrops washing tears down her face. “I can’t even find a dry spot to lie down on. It came in through the roof and up through the floor.”

A system of pumps had cleared many New Orleans streets by midafternoon, but much of the city and many suburbs remained inundated.

Trash and tree limbs blocked many streets. Swamped cars littered intersections.