Louisiana News

As the displaced residents of the Oklahoma City suburbs came to terms with the devastation around them Monday night pundits were already speculating that the tornado was one of the worst to ever hit the US, a dubious distinction for the newly homeless.

Trans-Gulf migrants arrived along the Louisiana and East Texas coasts yesterday afternoon, followed my heavy migration up through the Central and Southeastern U.S. High pressure over the Northeast suppressed any major nocturnal flight last night.

On Wednesday, Governor Jindal declared a state of emergency to prepare for Mississippi River crests that are predicted to be well above flood stage.

With its chairman describing new National Flood Insurance Program rules as leading to a "trail of tears" for south Louisiana, the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority passed a resolution Wednesday opposing the rules.

Although other parts of the country are facing drought conditions and the prospect of a bad wildfire season this year, Louisiana's outlook is much better.

Light trans-Gulf migration along the Texas coast was followed by heavy nocturnal migration up the central U.S. last night as the latest low pressure system swept across the Upper Midwest.

The storms developed along a strong cold front that stretched from a low pressure system over the Great Lakes and Northeast, through the Eastern valleys and lower Mississippi River Valley, into the central Texas.

The launch of Europe's lightweight rocket, Vega , planned for May 4 from Kourou in French Guiana, was put off on May 6 because of poor weather conditions at the space base, the European Space Agency said.

NFI signed a lease with Raul Walters Properties, owner of the Twin Pike Shopping Center, according to a press release.

Migration was hot and heavy last night, starting with trans-Gulf arrivals to the Texas and Louisiana coasts yesterday afternoon.

Louisiana officials have informally asked about video from security cameras at the old U.S. Highway 80 bridge where a barge struck the Mississippi River span on March 23, 2011.

But the Hannibal flood gates still are waiting to come out, while residents of Louisiana, Missouri are waiting to hear if a declaration will be made to help in their flood recovery.

This has been the second-coldest spring in the last century, and as a result, brown shrimp have grown more slowly than the U.S. economy.

Coastal experts have been telling us since Katrina that our marshes are getting perilously close to a tipping point.

The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission says the shrimp season will open at 6 a.m. May 13 from Bayou Lafourche west to the western shore of Vermilion Bay, opening May 20 and 27 in other inshore waters.

A winter storm will persist for the center of the nation on Friday, as a cold front slows and becomes a stationary front stretching from Michigan through the Lower Mississippi River Valley.

The Louisiana Opera and the University of Louisiana at Monroe Department of Music will present the Giacomo Puccini classic La Boheme for two fully staged performances at 7:30 p.m. May 17, and at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 19, in the Emy-Lou Biedenharn Recital Hall.

In the 1980s I was working in the middle of nowhere to build Louisiana's first marine laboratory.

Readings Monday showed the river is slightly above the 41-foot flood stage at the Tunica River Park in Tunica, Miss., but is still within banks elsewhere in the two states.

More than a dozen of the birds have landed or hopped onto the dock, where Stander takes in crabs and oysters from the fishermen who work the bayou and Lake Borgne at its mouth.