Tagged: evacuations

Louisiana State University officials say everything is back to normal a day after a bomb threat spawned an evacuation of the Baton Rouge campus.

University spokesman Herb Vincent said Tuesday LSU police are leading the investigation into the caller who phoned in a bomb threat Monday morning.

Louisiana State Police superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson said the caller will be arrested and prosecuted.

Authorities in Plaquemines Parish, where storm surge from Hurricane Isaac caused extensive flooding overnight, have ordered a mandatory evacuation for a portion of the west bank of the Mississippi River.

The evacuation affects people living from Venice north to the Oakville floodgate on Louisiana Highway 23.

A shelter was to open at noon in Belle Chasse.

Officials said the evacuation was ordered out of concern that more storm surge from Isaac would be pushed into the area and levees might be overtopped.

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) announced that it is in the process of restaging its busing assets to locations outside of the potential path of the storm and away from flood zones to ensure they are accessible for citizens' future use.

DOTD will maintain 10 coaches, one van and one pet carrier at Zephyr field if an immediate need arises.

More than 700 nursing home patients have been moved to higher ground in advance of Hurricane Isaac.

Gov. Bobby Jindal said Tuesday that eight nursing homes in the hurricane warning area have evacuated. The state Department of Health and Hospitals says those facilities had 745 residents.

More than 40 patients also have been moved from three small hospitals in the line of Isaac, according to Jindal.