What the Great Baton Rouge Flood Could Not Wash Away

Almost everyone I’ve spoken with knows where they were when it happened.

My patients trickled in slowly that day most canceling due to persistent rainfall. The weather channels predicted heavy rain, potential flooding, and recommended that everyone get or stay home. By noon Friday, school cancellations were announced and businesses began rescheduling appointments and shutting down. This scenario is not at all unusual in Louisiana, especially its southernmost cities, and even with a history of our region producing damaging storms, the devastation heading towards us would create a rippling effect to a city that had already encountered a tumultuous summer. I canceled office hours that day, let my staff clock out early and headed home to my family. By the time I had settled in on that rainy August 12, 2016, I felt as if all would be well.

I was wrong.

The Great Flood of 2016 came at a time when the city of Baton Rouge was still reeling from deep communal wounds. On July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot and killed by Baton Rouge police officers while selling CDs outside of Triple S Food Mart. The shooting of Sterling was recorded on a cell phone and went viral within a matter of 24 hours. On July 17th, six Baton Rouge law enforcement officers were shot by a non-Baton Rougean, ex-Marine Gavin Long. The shooting left three officers dead and one critically injured. The assassination of the officers wedged a deeper divide in a city that was already split along racial lines and differing ideologies around the role law enforcement played in the two tragedies. And just when it appeared as if the communal grief had reached it apex: Enter The Great Flood of 2016.

Unlike Hurricane Katrina, which in an odd way unified south Louisiana by bringing all sides of the socioeconomic divide together - the Great Flood re-opened and infected the slow-healing wound, highlighting examples of the kind of economic disparity and opportunity gaps that led to a convicted felon (Sterling) peddling CDs on the evening of his untimely death.

Between August 8th and August 14th, approximately 6.9 trillion gallons of water fell onto Louisiana, forcing 10,000 to evacuate flooded homes, with just over 20,000 being rescued by community volunteers. While volunteering at the medical shelter, I met many people who were rescued by a group of volunteers called the Cajun Navy. And yet despite the compassion being shown by citizens all around the state, something was eerily different compared to Hurricane Katrina.

There was still an unresolved tension that the flood waters, though catastrophic in its impact, only provided a temporary distraction from.

What we now know is that the flood waters have long receded. What we still do not know, eight months since the shooting of Alton Sterling, is whether or not Howie Lake, II and Blane Salamoni - the officers involved in shooting him, will be charged with the crime of an extrajudicial killing/violation of civil rights. Meanwhile, many Baton Rougeans have not recovered from loss endured during the flood.The Great Flood impacted the Greater Baton Rouge area, but as with all setbacks relative to the city of Baton Rouge, the north side of town where Alton Sterling resided, bore the brunt of rebuilding an area already ravaged by poverty.

Eight months later, I am still confronted with patients from north Baton Rouge that are currently affected by the flood’s impact. A countless amount are still displaced and yet to have received any FEMA assistance. Those who were fortunate enough to have flood insurance are engaged in an ongoing battle with insurance companies to receive disbursement on claims. Some have had to pay their own expenses and provide receipts to prove that the work has been completed - most are unable to afford this option. Yet, in spite of the many obstacles, these natives of neglect have proven to be resilient in the face of adversity.

In September of 2016 at the request of City Councilman Lamont Cole, I visited with a group of seniors at a day program for the elderly housed in north Baton Rouge. I was astonished by how much loss they collectively endured. Practically everyone that I met that day had lost everything they owned in the flood. Most of the seniors I met had lived in the north Baton Rouge community for over 20 years, and now they sat watching the world they knew slowly wither into the unknown.

And while the flood may have highlighted the slow and persistent demise in north Baton Rouge, the community’s hardships punctuated by its lack of resources began long before the waters raged. It also did not begin with the tragedy of Alton Sterling. Closed hospitals, emergency rooms and a decline in places to shop are just some of the challenges for residents of north Baton Rouge. Residential neighborhoods, lined with ditches instead of sidewalks, are littered with the kind of debris that serves as a constant reminder of the flood. Blighted properties and abandoned buildings serves as a reminder of a neglect that has been at play for decades. The condition pales in comparison from the south side of the parish where new businesses are opening, a new children’s hospital is breaking ground, luxury movie theaters are being touted, and the flagship mall of the city continues to attract popular retail chains.

Still, in spite of a summer plagued with blood and flood waters, the citizens of north Baton Rouge exemplify the kind of courageous resilience that sets the pace for the city as a whole. The often forgotten residents at the bottom of the map have a lifetime of experience soldiering forward through uncertain times. And while Baton Rouge as a whole awaits the outcome of the Sterling investigation as well as the full restoration of its functionality post-flood, the north Baton Rouge community continues to be led by their faith in a greater tomorrow. When you’re a part of a community that has bear witness to countless instances of institutional injustice, all you can do is learn to hope for the best, work to be the change you seek and count your blessings along the way.