BATON ROUGE, La. - After the Red River's flooding earlier this week in northwestern Louisiana, the Louisiana National Guard is continuing to assist local, parish and state officials, as directed by Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Soldiers are transporting assets, assisting construction efforts and positioning teams to assess potentially affected areas.
A rising Red River covered streets and, in some instances, entered homes in northwestern Louisiana on June 6.
"The Louisiana National Guard has been on station and has been since the beginning of the Red River flood response," said Maj. Gen. Glenn H. Curtis, the state adjutant general. "We will be here until the response is finished ... until we are told to go home."
Since June 8, Guard members have been conducting daily 16-hour levee seepage patrols along the Red River in Bossier and Rapides Parishes in order to assess and identify potential problem areas.
About 150 Soldiers were assisting in the relief efforts for the spring flooding, according to figures from the National Guard Bureau.
The LANG also conducted a recon flight June 9 for the Corps of Engineers in Avoyelles Parish to monitor the levees and flood situation there.
So far, the LANG has linked Engineer Assessment Teams (EAT) to assist Bossier, Caddo, Natchitoches, Rapides and Grant Parish EOCs, at their request, with increasing protective measures for water/sewage plants in the possible affected areas.
LANG Engineer teams continue to provide personnel and equipment to Camp Minden to support production and transportation of an approximate 60,000 filled sandbags to Bossier and Webster Parishes. Guardsmen then deliver these filled sand bags to locations designated by Parish officials.
To date, the LANG has issued 475,000 sandbags to support flood-fighting operations. They moved an additional 500,000 sandbags to northwest and central Louisiana. The LANG has provided six sandbag filling machines to north Louisiana, which can produce 400 to 500 sandbags per hour.