President Obama spent Tuesday on the ground in Louisiana, experiencing first-hand the devastation after historic flooding. The president toured some of the hardest hit areas around Baton Rouge, vowing federal support and financial help for those who lost everything.
Help for flood victims has come in many forms and from many places, including Connecticut. Plans that came together at the international headquarters of the Knights of Columbus in New Haven are already aiding people nearly fifteen hundred miles away in Louisiana.
Floodwaters around Baton Rouge are receding, revealing even more of the 60,000 homes damaged last week by storms that dumped as much as two feet of rain in just two days. At least thirteen people died in the flooding. Those who survived have a difficult road ahead.
“They need food. They need clothing," said Andrew Walther of the Knights of Columbus. "They need shelter and a couple of days after that, they need clean up supplies.”
“The scale of this disaster has elicited an enormous amount of support, sympathy and also donations," said Walther.
Over the last week, the Knights of Columbus said the organization had raised more than $250,000 for flood relief. Volunteers are also on the ground in hard-hit Baton Rouge.
“Running food kitchens, moving pallets of food to people, renting trucks to move supplies around, helping people clean homes," Walther said of the assistance volunteers are offering.
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Officials with the Knights of Columbus said they will continue their fundraising efforts in Connecticut and nationwide and will continue with assistance in Louisiana, where more than two thousand people were said to still be staying in shelters on Tuesday night.
“It really speaks volumes to the fabric of the country that we can see a problem hundreds of miles away and say ‘I want to help those people’," said Walther.
