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Former WGIL reporter loses home in Baton Rouge area floods

Thousands have been displaced and 13 have been reported dead as flood waters rage around the Baton Rouge, Louisiana area.

One of those displaced is a former WGIL reporter, Kyle Schassburger.

Schassburger lives in Denham Springs, Louisiana in the parish of Livingston.

He says Livingston Parish, parishes are the Louisiana equivalent of counties, was the hardest hit area with about 75 percent of it being a total loss.

Schassburger tells WGIL that’s with a population of 140,000.

“My apartment was one of them,” Schassburger says. “My in-laws got eight feet of water, other family got eight feet of water. We’re just trying to pick up the pieces as we go now.”

Some stores have closed he says because stores can’t control with the rush of people, some buying supplies, some looting.

Schassburger says this flood isn’t talked about the same way as Hurricane Katrina and it should be.

“Just because this storm didn’t have some fancy or sexy name doesn’t mean it wasn’t catastrophic, because it was,” Schassburger says. “To many out here, even those who lived through Katrina and helped with those relief efforts, they’ll agree that this was just as bad.”

Schassburger was given 48 hours to remove anything salvageable from his apartment before he was forced to leave.

He estimates that he and has family lost about half of their possessions.

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