louisiana, a barrier island 50 miles south of louisiana. the fire director says half of the homes have been wiped away. never seen it look like this. it s decimating. the people are very sad. a lot of people lost their homes talking about they don t know whether they ll go back or not because they don t have the money to go back, can t afford to go back. some people went to extraordinary measures to survive hurricane ida and help those in their community. one man pulled a boat filled with gas, water and priceless possessions through waist deep water after surveying the damage to his home in laplace, louisiana. christopher shot that video. what can you tell us about what it s been like in the aftermath of hurricane ida? it s just total devastation. we ve been through this with isaac before and it seems to not get any better here in louisiana. you know, it s just hard. it s just hard on a lot of residents here.
others will make their way home. you can t stay here. you can t there s no food. there s no supplies. it s not a good situation. reporter: volunteers trying to help setting up in new orleans to provide hot and cold meals. new orleans is known for caring for our community. and a lot of the ways we show love is food. reporter: with patience wearing thin, the governor urging people who evacuated to wait to return. please don t come home until we tell you it s time. reporter: those who stayed through the storm, it s time for cleanup. in laplace, she said ida was unlike any other hurricane she experienced before. this neighborhood is now filled with debris. remnant of warehouses and other structures once stood. it was real scary. i won t stay again. no way. i just thank god we all made it. reporter: flood waters still
it lifted it off the jacks and the front is embedded in the ground about a foot. you re staying at your home? yes. we have a generator, thank god. we must on masks and try to shovel up what we can. we re three days into all this. i imagine you re running low of supplies. exactly. how worried are you about the coming days and how difficult it s going to be, waiting for the power to come on? i worked at the va in new orleans. i m worried i won t have gas to get into work. they canceled the clinics for today, so it s okay. i don t know that i ll be able to get gas to get into new orleans to work. i ve seen the lines for the gas are brutal here in laplace. it s crazy. we have a boat, we ve been getting gasolines out of that to give to relatives to run their
kaitlan, and we have to wait for daylight to look around and see what s around us because we re still without power, and that power has been out for day two, potentially day three for some people here in new orleans. we have about 25,000 workers from power companies all over the country. 32 states and d.c. who are here right now. they have a big task at hand, restoring power for 32 million people. perhaps, kaitlan, the worst of it is in laplace, louisiana, where 350 people had to be rescued from rising flood waters. across louisiana, destruction and devastation in the wake of hurricane ida, but it s still far too dangerous for many to assess just how much damage is done here. more than a million louisianans are still in the dark. we have no electricity. we have very little to no telecommunications. we have low water pressure, so
on her kitchen island as flood waters were coming into their home. other people escaping into their attics. they knew it was going to be bad but they didn t think it was going to be this bad. what was it like for you last night? a nightmare. it was horrible. it was the wind i ve never had wind shake the house the way it did. the only way we survived the night was we went upstairs on the landing between the two bedrooms. between the two bedrooms because that was the only place that didn t have where the ceiling looked like it was weak. i ve lived here all my life. we ve been through all the storms. they expected it to come and be bad but we didn t expect it to get this close to laplace. we didn t know it would be this bad. wasn t supposed to be this close. so i m not going to take that chance again. not with a family. reporter: and anderson, one family we talked to said that last night they described it as enduring hours of agony, living through all of this.