It’s been a strange summer this year, because for most of the summer Western New York has been in a drought. Western New York usually averages a little above 10 inches of rain during the summer. According to the latest data I can find, we’ve had 4.45 inches of rain this summer. It’s hard to realize that just 1,300 miles southwest of us a very different rain story is being told.

On August 11, 2016, a nearly stationary mesoscale convective system, a series of thunderstorms that are large but not large enough to be classified as an extratropical cyclone, began pouring down in the areas surrounding Baton Rouge and Lafayette which are in southern Louisiana. Flooding began on August 12 and on August 13, a flash flood emergency alert was issued for the areas surrounding the Amite and Comite rivers. Eight rivers in Louisiana had reached record flood levels by August 15. It rained 6,900,000,000,000 gallons of rain between August 8 and August 14. Which is enough water to fill more than 10.4 million Olympic-size swimming pools. It’s hard enough to even imagine that many swimming pools, let alone all of the water in them, so let’s try to break the numbers down further.

The average rainfall for the month of August in Baton Rouge is 5.83 inches, which is less than an inch more of what we have received this dry summer. Livingston Parish alone received more than 31 inches of rain in a span of 15 hours. During those same 15 hours, Baton Rouge received more than 19 inches of rain. That’s more than triple of their average August rainfall. That means these towns and their surrounding areas have received between triple and double the amount of rain we usually get in one summer.

Officials, such as the Red Cross, are declaring this flooding to be the worst disaster in United States since Superstorm Sandy. President Obama has declared 20 parishes a disaster area and told FEMA Director Craig Fugate to “utilize all resources available to assist in the response and recovery.” More than 30,000 residents and 1,400 pets have been rescued by the US Coast Guard, National Guard, their local emergency responders and even by their neighbors. However, 13 people throughout five parishes have died due to this disaster. Officials are thinking it will cost at least $30 million to recover from this disaster.

All of these numbers and facts just show us that we should be talking more about the Louisiana Flooding. I have not heard a lot about the flooding and had to do extensive research to learn all of these facts to share with you. Right now, we need to remember that 1,300 miles away from us people are hurting. 60,646 family homes have been damaged in this storm. We need to remember this number and try to help out our fellow Americans as much as we can, even as we’re worried about our own drought.