Things have taken a seemingly dire turn in the last hour, as officials have ordered as many as 60,000 people to immediately evacuate from towns along the Tangipahoa River in Louisiana, about 100 miles north of New Orleans, for fear of an “imminent” break in the Lake Tangipahoa Dam.
Hopefully those people get out safely, and hopefully this is not a sign of things to come as Isaac’s torrential rains make their way to streams, rivers and lakes throughout the region.
Stay tuned to NOLA.com and the other local news sites linked in my last post. Also follow me on Twitter, where I’ll post updates as I get them.
P.S. Of note, Britney Spears’s hometown of Kentwood is one of the towns threatened.
LATE UPDATE: The breach is apparently no longer considered “imminent,” and efforts to relieve some of the stress on the dam with a deliberate upstream levee breach in Mississippi appear to be working. However, the evacuations continue as a precaution.
Meanwhile, sadly, Isaac has now claimed its first two reported lives in Louisiana.
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