Texas flood victims find refuge in Louisiana
BATON ROUGE - More than 1,500 people are staying at shelters in Louisiana in Harvey's aftermath, and the number is rising as more people are evacuated from flood-ravaged communities in Texas.
Shauna Sanford, a spokeswoman for Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, says 1,510 people were in six Louisiana shelters as of midnight Thursday. She says 1,384 of them came from Texas.
The state opened a seventh shelter in Shreveport on Friday that can accommodate approximately 2,400 people. Sanford says 1,177 people spent the night at a state-run shelter in Alexandria that has a capacity of about 2,500. The state Department of Children and Family Services is overseeing the two state-run shelters.
More than 200 others were staying at a parish-run shelter in Lake Charles. Sanford says the Red Cross opened three shelters - two in Rapides Parish and one in Caddo Parish. Another shelter opened at a church in Beauregard Parish.