It’s been one week since Hurricane Gustav made landfall and devastated south Louisiana. We apologize for the brief interruption in posts; TakePart will continue to do our best to cover the effects and relief efforts from the storm, even if the national media won’t. As you can see in the video above, cleaning up all the limbs, trees, and debris remains most people’s daily routine, and desperately wishing you had your electricity (aka air conditioning and perishable food) back remains a popular past time. Brush piles up to 10 feet high line most streets in older Baton Rouge neighborhoods.

Just how much debris did Hurricane Gustav create in Baton Rouge? The parish created a 30 day plan for removing all debris. However, with Hurricane Ike looming just outside the Gulf of Mexico, the parish has speeded up the plan to less than a week. If the piles were to remain uncollected, they could turn into dangerous projectiles if Baton Rouge were unfortunate enough to be hit with another deadly hurricane. More updates and pictures after the jump.

UPDATES:

• The National Guard is patrolling Baton Rouge to keep order and enforce the 10pm curvew. Since power has not been restored to large portions of the city, they’re also aiding police in preventing looting in darkened empty neighborhoods.
• Monday will be the first day since the storm where most people will be expected to return to work or school (as they are able).
• Governor Bobby Jindal has already requested the Federal Government declare Louisiana a disaster area in advance of Hurricane Ike.

To give you an idea of how big debris piles are in older neighborhoods, check out the pictures below from my father’s yard. Keep in mind this is just branches that blew down - had a tree come down the pile would be much larger.

2 days of work, 1 pile of brush

Continuing our effort to show you different parts of the city of Baton Rouge, below are pictures from the Capital Heights area of the city. The neighborhood sustained heavy damage, some roads are still impassable, and because the neighborhood is still mostly without power is about halfway empty.

Impassable roads in Capital Heights

Debris piles and damage in Capital Heights

Read our Hurricane Gustav coverage