New plight for Louisiana flood victims: Find a place to live

DENHAM SPRINGS, La. (AP) — Keisha Taylor, a 37-year-old mother of four, has spent three nights in two different shelters since her family fled the flooding at their Baton Rouge apartment complex.

She doesn't know how many more nights they will be sleeping on cots inside the downtown arena where hundreds sought shelter.

Taylor probably could stay with relatives in White Castle, a town about 30 miles west of Louisiana's capital city, but three of her kids are enrolled in Baton Rouge schools that could reopen next week.

"This is where I live. I need to be home," she said.

Taylor is among thousands of people across southern Louisiana displaced by catastrophic flooding and now struggling with where to live.

An additional evacuation recommendation was made in Vermilion Parish. Gueydan Fire Chief Evans Bourque told The Associated Press early today that residents in about 60 to 70 homes in an area outside the levee system there were being urged to evacuate amid rising water. Bourque estimated the evacuation would affect less than 100 people.

With an estimated 40,000 homes damaged by deadly flooding, Louisiana could be looking at its biggest housing crunch since the miserable, bumbling aftermath of Hurricane Katrina a decade ago.