Friday, Sept. 28, 2012

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Hurricane Isaac damaged nearly 59,000 homes across southeast Louisiana. That is more than four times the number officials estimated a week after the storm made landfall on Aug. 28.

The Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness says the most severe damage hit houses and rental units in St. John the Baptist and Plaquemines parishes, where flooding swamped some homes with several feet of water.

The latest estimates are for 46,663 owner-occupied houses and 12,289 rental units.

The damage data comes from door-to-door inspections of more than 120,000 homes done by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after people registered for federal aid.

The Category 1 storm was relatively weak and most of the damage came from flooding.

(Copyright 2012, The Associated Press)