BELLE CHASE, La. — Floodwaters from Isaac receded, power returned, and businesses opened Friday at the start of the Labor Day weekend, the beginning of what is certain to be a slow recovery for Louisiana.
Newly nominated Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney visited flood-ravaged communities, and President Barack Obama said he would arrive Monday, appearances this part of the country is all too familiar with after Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill.
Meanwhile, the leftovers from the storm pushed into the drought-stricken Midwest, knocking out power to thousands of people in Arkansas. At least seven people were killed in the storm in Mississippi and Louisiana.
In Lafitte, a fishing village south of New Orleans, Romney saw soaked homes, roads covered with brown water and debris-littered neighborhoods. The GOP-friendly community is outside of the federal levee system that spared New Orleans and it sits on an exposed stretch of land near the Gulf.
Romney met along a highway with Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, and they talked about challenges facing the stricken area, which relies on fishing for its livelihood. He also spoke to town officials and emergency workers.
“I’m here to learn and obviously to draw some attention to what’s going on here,” Romney told the governor. “So that people around the country know that people down here need help.”
At one point, Romney and Jindal talked to a man in waders, a straw hat and holding a neon yellow “Mitt Is Our Man” handwritten sign. Theman complained about the area’s lack of protection from flooding.
The town is just outside a region that is protected by levees and other flood protection measures built after Katrina battered New Orleans in 2005. The Army Corps of Engineersspent about $13 billion on the system.
Richard Riley rode out the storm in his home. Even though the water was receding Friday, he decided it was time the leave. He walked about a mile and found rescuers, who took him to family members.
Riley said he favored building new flood protection for the area, especially after Isaac delivered a surprising amount of water. Riley, a Republican, welcomed visits from Romney and the president. He said he wanted Obama to help make that happen.
“He needs to see the devastation and allocate the money that’s needed to build new levees or do whatever is needed to protect us,” Riley said.
Jindal is now calling on the federal government to expand the rebuilt flood-protection system that prevented serious flooding in New Orleans during this week’s storm.
Romney was silent on whether, as president, he would support paying for such an expansion. Romney’s running mate, Wisconsin’s Rep. Paul Ryan, has proposed eliminating $10 billion a year in disaster spending and requiring Congress to pay for emergencies by cutting from elsewhere in the budget. That proposal was blocked by GOP leaders.
Jindal insisted that he would stay focused on the storm’s aftermath during the visits of Romney and Obama.
“We’re not talking politics,” he said. “That’s not the right time to do that. We’re solely focused on the hurricane and the response.”
Back in Washington, Democrats seized on the trip to accuse Republicans of supporting cuts in federal disaster funding that the Gulf Coast will now need to recover from Isaac.
“It is the height of hypocrisy for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to make a pretense of showing sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Isaac when their policies would leave those affected by this disaster stranded and on their own,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, DNev., in a written statement.
Louisiana’s Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, said she welcomed Romney to her home state but pushed him on disaster funding.
“I hope as he witnesses recovery in action, he will reflect upon his party’s approach to funding disaster response,” she said. “Had the plan advocated by his running mate Congressman Paul Ryan and Congressman Eric Cantor prevailed, there would be no money readily available to provide assistance for this, or any other disaster.”
Asked to comment on Romney’s visit to Louisiana, White House spokesman Jay Carney said: “I think that it’s always important to draw attention to the fact that individuals and families and business owners are profoundly affected ... that’s an important thing to do.”
Crown Point, Lafitte and other nearby settlements that jut inland from the Gulf are accustomed to high water driven by hurricanes. But Isaac, a relatively weak storm by the standards of Betsy and Katrina, pushed in much more water than expected after it stalled after landfall.
To the east, officials pumped and released water from a reservoir, easing the pressure behind an Isaac-stressed dam in Mississippi on the Louisiana border. The threat for the earthen dam on Lake Tangipahoa prompted evacuations in small towns and rural areas.
In New Orleans, at the Magnolia Discount Gas Station in the Carrollton neighborhood, employee Gadeaon Fentessa said up to 50 drivers an hour were pulling in, hopeful they could pump. He had the gas, but no power. Stations that did have power to pump had long lines.
There were other signs of life getting back to some sense of normalcy. The Mississippi River opened to limited traffic, the French Quarter rekindled its lively spirit and restaurantsreopened.
Isaac dumped as much as 16 inches of rain in some areas, and about 500 people had to be rescued by boat or high-water vehicles. More than 5,000 people were still staying in shelters.
The remainder of the storm was still a powerful system packing rain and the threat of flash flooding as it headed across Arkansas into Missouri and then up the Ohio River valley over the weekend, the National Weather Service said.
Labor Day plans were already taking a hit.
Oleg Shneper, manager of the Extended Stay America hotel in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash, said occupancy was down about 10 percent already.
Farther south, the storm victims included a man and a woman discovered late Thursday in a home in the hard-hit town of Braithwaite, south of New Orleans; a man killed in a restaurant fire; two men killed in car accidents; a woman whose car was hit by a tree; and a man who fell from a tree.
In Louisiana alone, the storm cut power to 901,000 homes and businesses, or about 47 percent of the state, but that was down to 617,000.
More than 15,000 utility workers began restoring power in Louisiana and Mississippi, but officials said it would be a couple of days before power was fully restored.
Crews intentionally breached a levee that was strained by Isaac’s floodwaters in southeast Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish, which is outside the federal levee system. Parish President Billy Nungesser said the work was slow-going. Workers were only able to reach one spot, he said, and 10 to 12 cuts were planned. The levee is cut as the tide goes out, he said, then patched while the tide comes back.
Information for this article was contributed by Vicki Smith, Stacey Plaisance, Kasie Hunt, Brian Schwaner, Janet McConnaughey, Melinda Deslatte, Kevin McGill, Holbrook Mohr, Steve Peoples, Cain Burdeau and Matthew Daly of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 09/01/2012