Helicopters airlift supplies to 1,500 stranded motorists in flooded Louisiana

Severe flooding in Louisiana, August 2016
(Image credit: Max Becherer/Associated Press)

Louisiana State Police are using helicopters to airlift drinking water and food to an estimated 1,500 motorists stranded by massive flooding on Interstate 12 for about 24 hours. Police first attempted to bring the supplies using high water vehicles and boats, but the floodwaters are too deep for the former and too uneven for the latter.

"There is a mother who is nursing and some older people who are really struggling," said Dominique Dugas, who is among those stranded. "It's breaking my heart to see everyone suffering." Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said the flooding, which has killed at least three people, is a "truly historic event" and a "major disaster" for his state.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.