Hurricane Isaac damage could top $2 billion
(CBS News) PLAQUEMINES PARISH - Along with the president, inspectors from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were on the Gulf Coast Monday night.
They are assessing the damage from Hurricane Isaac, which could top $2 billion. More than 125,000 homes and businesses are still without power.
Six days after making landfall, Isaac is the uninvited guest who just won't leave. In Plaquemines Parish, the flood devastated lives and livestock.
Carolyn Sylve, 62, and her daughter had to take a canoe to see what they could salvage.
"I don't know if you even want to come back here. This is our land, you know. You want to come home but you can't," Sylve said.
While the reinforced, $14 billion levy system kept New Orleans dry, the complaint here is it pushed more water into the smaller, poorer towns.
"I mean, people just can't keep doing this. We just don't have the resources. People just aren't rich here, we're poor. Things need to change."
Isaac walloped Plaquemines Parish. Ten feet of water submerged entire neighborhoods.
Flooding, outages linger in Isaac's wake
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As flood from Isaac recedes, La. surveys damage
In St. John's Parish, 30 miles west of New Orleans, Calvin and Constance Woods saw their home had taken in five feet of water. The floors are soaked, the roof is ruined -- even the doors are swollen shut.
The Woods lost their home to Katrina and now Isaac has done the same. There is a reason they waited until Monday to see the damage: Woods, the pastor at Liberty Baptist Church in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, felt his congregation needed his Sunday service.
"That was more important," Woods said.
The Army Corps of Engineers says it will look into whether the levee system -- which protected New Orleans -- pushed water into outlying communities.
