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Published January 23, 2017
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," August 22, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to "Hannity," and tonight, we are broadcasting from the Greenwell Springs Baptist Church. We're in Louisiana. Now, more than 60,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed by the deadly flooding right here in this state.
Now, the devastation is almost unimaginable. Don't believe me? Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When this first happened, it was so hard. I've never been through nothing like this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The water was about two feet deep in the house when the fire department came with a rescue boat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got over here, flood water was almost up to our front door, threw the whole family in the truck as fast as we could, packed bags.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She called me, and she was begging me. She said, Mom, she said, the water is coming up on us. She said, We need rescue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This morning, I was handing out food boxes, and a lady just broke down crying. And I hugged her and prayed with her and just -- just consoled her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm devastated. I've cried all day. A hundred percent of my things have been destroyed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Seems like a bad dream. You just get to the point where you just don't know what to say or think.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is just nothing that I've ever seen. Nothing. Katrina wasn't, Gustav, none of those storms can compare to this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, let's give our love on down to Baton Rouge. Thank you all for being -- coming out to the church. All these people behind me are all volunteering to help their community in need. When you hear the story of devastation and how many people literally were getting on boats and saving lives as this water came in so fast, it's an incredible story of heroism, generosity, kindness, I mean, everything that makes America great.
Sir, how are you? What's your name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John Broussard (ph).
HANNITY: All right, when I got here -- and we're going to show this later in the show tonight -- I could not believe what I saw. It was house after house, block after block, street after street, devastation, water up as high as six feet in these houses, every home destroyed. And it may be as many as 100,000.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In our neighborhood, I had two foot of water in our house. We had a little bit of time to get stuff out, which we...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: An hour.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About an hour. It was -- the river was rising about three inches every hour. When I woke up at 7:05, I saw neighbors -- one of them -- one of my neighbors said water was in the house and they were moving to higher ground. And within an hour, we had water coming in our house.
HANNITY: And look, this isn't just -- these homes, as we'll show later -- and we're showing some -- probably some B-roll right now -- it was -- I mean, these homes were destroyed. I saw it anywhere from four feet, five feet, six feet, you know, and you had an hour to get out of the house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, we had an hour to get out.
HANNITY: What's your name, by the way?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Theresa (ph) Broussard.
HANNITY: Hi, Theresa.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We never thought we would get water because the big flood of '83, our house was high and dry, and my husband was talking to...
HANNITY: Is this your husband?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
HANNITY: You married way up. OK.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We -- my husband was talking to the neighbor, who parked his car on the road in the highest spot, and he still -- we couldn't wrap our minds around it. It wasn't coming. It's not coming. Different circumstances. Well, it came, and it came fast. And as a home school mom, all I could worry about was getting my schoolbooks and everything up in the attic where it was safe.
HANNITY: Oh, man.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I said, John, we can lose everything, but we can't lose those schoolbooks. And fortunately...
HANNITY: See, if I was your student, I would be upset by that.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know!
HANNITY: I would have said, Let's drown the books, you know?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My son's not happy.
HANNITY: It's amazing. I'm joking, but it's not a joke because every -- you think of the American dream. And I was just saying this before. The American dream is you get your house, and you get that house, and these people aren't going to be moving back into these homes maybe for a year or two. I mean, it's sad.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. But there is a silver lining. I'm doing hashtag #Faithfamilyandfriends because that's what's getting us through. Our faith, of course, is just -- I had a wonderful Bible study this morning. Last night, I picked up where I left off Saturday morning, where I was casually drinking my coffee thinking, I'm not going to get water, and...
HANNITY: This is almost like your own version of Noah's Ark.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Yes. And so -- but faith, family and friends because we're staying with family, and friends are looking out for us and they've helped pull nails. They've helped pull sheetrock and all that, so...
HANNITY: You know what the thing that really impressed me is I saw that every block, every street that we went on -- and we'll show some of this video -- it was like every house had already been gutted. Nobody from...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
HANNITY: No government agency got here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
HANNITY: This is neighbor helping neighbor. Are you...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is our son.
HANNITY: How are you doing? What's your name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Andrew Broussard.
HANNITY: Hi, Andrew. Nice to meet you. Are you helping your mom out big- time now? You stepping up?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
HANNITY: Yes? All right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had to pull out some walls.
HANNITY: Is that your little sister?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
HANNITY: Hey, darling. What's your name? Oh, OK.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Don't worry. I'm not a liberal. I'm not Hillary.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: I'm not Obama.
Well, listen, please know you're in our thoughts and prayers. And we're going to talk to some other folks here.
Are we going over here? OK. How're you doing? What's your name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Joshua (ph).
HANNITY: Hey, Joshua. How are you? Tell us what went on where you live.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We live in Prairieville, actually, so we didn't get flooded.
HANNITY: Right. You came to help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. We've -- actually, hanging out with the Broussards.
HANNITY: Really?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We gutted a house today and just really sad to see all the dreams of people. And when kids are living there, you see all the scattered pieces of the games on the floor, and it's just really hard to watch.
HANNITY: Yes. But you came to help, as did everybody in this room, which says a lot about you. Thank you so much what you're doing. Give this guy a hand.
(APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: Hi. What's your name, darling?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ellie (ph).
HANNITY: Hi. What's your name?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ellie.
HANNITY: Ellie? Now, you're the one that -- you hit my hand. You can show everybody. Hard. Ow! Ow! Tell us about what happened. No, this little girl, and that's your little boy over here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, and I have a few more behind me.
HANNITY: Oh, my God. What a good-looking family. Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.
HANNITY: So tell us what happened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So Friday morning, we woke up and realized that our house looked like it was about to flood. So we put all of our furniture on cinderblocks and called our friend to come and get us because we already couldn't get out of our neighborhood and (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Mike.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Mike.
HANNITY: Mr. Mike came to help you? Do you like Mr. Mike? Yes? He's nice? Do you beat him up, too?
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: No? OK. I'm -- just me. I'm the punching bag. So did you save your furniture?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well...
HANNITY: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... no. So Friday, we went to my parents' house across town. Their house is about five feet off the ground, and we got word Friday night that our house didn't flood. But there was about three feet of water...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We thought it would flood.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We thought it would flood. But my parents' house had about three feet of water around it, not in the house yet. And so we couldn't leave.
And then Saturday, about 5:00 o'clock that afternoon, water started coming in their house. It ended up about knee-deep. We were stuck in two rooms with 11 people. So we had a renter next door who didn't leave, and they were on the ground level. So she came with us. And so it was my parents and my niece and nephew and the six of us and the renter, and four dogs...
HANNITY: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... upstairs for two or three days. I've kind of lost track.
HANNITY: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For three days.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For three days.
HANNITY: For three days? Yes? Do you want to be on TV when you get older? You'd be really good at it.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So...
HANNITY: Did you all hear -- and we're going to show this. But one of the more amazing things -- it came down so fast, and the currents were pretty...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: OK, and everyone told the story about how everyone with a boat came. And the sheriff told me he could not believe, in the one county we were in earlier, Livingston, that only one person died in that county considering the rapids, the amount of old -- number of old people, elderly.
You had a hospital. You had a nursing home. And they got everybody out because everybody -- not one federal government bit of aid here, but neighbor helping neighbor with their boats, right? All true? And so many lives were saved.
Well, we're going to come back, and we're going to show the country what I saw today, which will shock your conscience. And that is home after home, street after street literally devastation, and this is going to take years to complete.
We're in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It's "Hannity" on the road. Stay right there. We'll also meet that great sheriff who helped save a lot of lives this weekend straight ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The smell is just horrendous. Every drawer, every bin, every pot you open still contains that toxic, you know, river water. And so the cleanup has been a real mess. It's more devastation than I've ever seen in my life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The water levels came up to right here, about four feet off the ground. I mean, just about everything was ruined that the water touched. Right here, we have -- just trying to suck the water out of every drawer in the house because it's full of this water.
So this was our living room, dining room and kitchen that was completely destroyed, different pieces of furniture that are irreplaceable that we have to buy, very expensive pieces of equipment -- it's all lost.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Unbelievable devastation. Welcome back to "Hannity," and we're broadcasting tonight from Greenwell Springs Baptist Church. We're in Louisiana, where earlier today, Sheriff Jason Ard from the Livingston Parish sheriff's office -- he showed me exactly what the floods had destroyed. This is unbelievable. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: Sheriff Ard, thanks so much for taking us out here.
JASON ARD, LIVINGSTON PARISH SHERIFF: Thank you.
HANNITY: Look -- stop here for a second. Take a look down there. Look at all this. This is Livingston Parish. Describe where we are and exactly how bad this got. This looks like the aftermath of Katrina.
ARD: Yes, it does. We're actually south of Hill Springs, the south Hill Springs Area, which is just south of (INAUDIBLE)...
HANNITY: Right.
ARD: ... which is actually just west of -- east of Baton Rouge. And this area has never flooded.
HANNITY: Stop right here. Look down here.
ARD: The devastation that this flood has caused these residents here, it's just horrible. I actually was involved in Katrina, and the only thing that I can think in my 25 years of experience to describe this is Katrina. And the reason is I remember seeing the vehicles stalled on the road, flipped over in the ditches, the boats everywheres, just the mass destruction, and this is as close as I can...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: If we can get a picture -- stop for a second and look at that water line on the house. It's up two thirds of the way on the house.
(CROSSTALK)
ARD: You have water lines that are going to be above the roof line. I mean, you have homes here that were completely destroyed.
HANNITY: How many people are we talking about displaced?
ARD: You know, we think over 80 percent of our population, which is 141,000, have been touched by this storm.
HANNITY: Right.
ARD: We know there's some that lost everything. We know some that just had just damage.
HANNITY: Hey, guys, look at this. You know, let's look down this block. If you can shoot down that block and take a look.
Now, Sheriff, you told me earlier -- and this stunned me. I mean, look at this. It's unbelievable. These are people's lives. Look at how high the water mark goes up.
ARD: Not only they're losing their homes, but a lot of them lost their vehicles. I mean, whenever you -- if you've never flooded before, I mean, how do you know to get out?
The water's moving down this direction. We started getting calls from here. We actually had to prioritize and tell people that are on the bottom floor that are moving to the second floor to tell us when you get in your attic because then you become priority. That's how many people were calling.
HANNITY: And you lost only one person with no notice, and you were able to commandeer between what your officers were able to do, the National Guard - - I assume they weighed in, as well?
ARD: Right.
HANNITY: And basically, neighbor helping neighbor...
ARD: That's right.
HANNITY: ... commandeering any boat you had, and with no notice, you got everybody out and only one person died.
ARD: Yes, sir.
HANNITY: Wow.
ARD: And it's truly amazing. It's just truly amazing...
HANNITY: That's a miracle.
ARD: ... but you know, we just know without a doubt God's watching over is and they (ph) helped us to make this -- make this happen for these citizens to get them out. (INAUDIBLE) total devastation, but there's a lot of good things that comes out of this. And when you got your head down, just know we're strong and things could have been a lot worse than what they was.
HANNITY: All right, so as you're getting all these people out, how many hours did it take to get everyone from every neighborhood out?
ARD: We didn't probably start feeling that we accomplished what we needed to accomplish until probably Monday morning.
HANNITY: This is it. This is the water line.
ARD: Right.
HANNITY: And actually, it's even worse down the block (INAUDIBLE) telling me.
ARD: A lot worse down the block.
HANNITY: Worse. All right, so this -- but look -- guys, if you can just get a picture -- this house is done. It is gutted almost completely. This is a total rebuild. This is all electrical, all plumbing, everything...
ARD: And they also had to get chemicals in here to make sure they get the mold and things that could possibly -- we know it's coming (INAUDIBLE)
HANNITY: Yes.
ARD: So this is (INAUDIBLE)
HANNITY: So these are thousands of people. I just spoke with a daughter. I mean, they're asking their mom to move down to Florida now...
ARD: Right.
HANNITY: ... because, obviously, she's not getting back in her house in a long time.
ARD: Right. And that's the sad thing. You got a lot of people that don't -- are not going to have anywhere to live.
HANNITY: Yes.
ARD: I mean, they don't have right now because everything's, you know, basically destroyed -- not everything, but most things are destroyed.
HANNITY: Where are you putting the people now that are displaced? Do you have a...
ARD: Our parish government is working on trying to get housing. We do have them in shelters. We're making sure they're getting fed and doing the best we can there. We also have a lot of our faith-based communities, churches and stuff, that are actually housing people, as well.
HANNITY: I know Franklin Graham's group is down here, Tony Perkins's group, Samaritan's Purse. They've been a big help?
ARD: We have people just down here cooking just to make sure everyone is fed. I mean, they're helping, working with the Red Cross and other entities to make sure that there's food and water here. So everyone's working together, and we're getting those important things done. I think the thing that people are starting to focus on is, My home, what am I going to do? Where am I going to get...
HANNITY: Right. You know, we all watched Katrina, and I was down after -- I saw the aftermath of Katrina, and what I said on TV at the time is pictures never capture the devastation.
ARD: Right.
HANNITY: I would argue we can't even with pictures capture the devastation here.
ARD: Right.
HANNITY: In that case, though, you had a lot of crime and looting, et cetera. You said you've had some, but not too bad.
ARD: Yes, we've been taking a very hard line toward that. We have a lot of agencies throughout the state that came due (ph) to the Louisiana's Sheriffs Association...
HANNITY: Right.
ARD: ... to help us patrol our streets and keeping the looters out. So we're averaging about 10 or 15 a night that we're actually arresting for looting. We're not -- we're taking a very hard line with that. We're not going to put up with that at all.
HANNITY: Right.
ARD: And a lot of people think because I had to close my jail down (INAUDIBLE) the inmates but don't have nowheres to go, but that's not true. I have a temporary booking facility...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: You're taking care of that. You got a place for them to stay, too?
ARD: That's right.
HANNITY: Well, Sheriff, I know you've been real busy and very generous with your time. We really appreciate it. Our thoughts and prayers are with you. I know our audience's is, as well.
ARD: We appreciate that.
HANNITY: And I hope -- the nation needs to see this. We're going to put up different organizations like Samaritan's Purse and Tony Perkins's group and see if we can't help the great people down here out.
ARD: Right. And I want to just say thank you to all the people that have came and helped. And they're continuing to come, continuing to call, not only bringing food but bringing workers and helping with demolition and helping with reconstruction. So we have a lot of organizations that are helping.
HANNITY: Yes. Well, with that, too, I just can't believe there's been nowhere near the national attention that this deserves. You even said, locally, they're not even following this yet.
ARD: Well, I think the locals that followed early on, it looks like, you know, we're still having some other areas that are flooding.
HANNITY: Still?
ARD: Still in the southern part of the state.
(CROSSTALK)
ARD: ... issues, so I'm sure they're still working on that because of limited resources.
HANNITY: Sheriff, it's a miracle you got everybody out of here. It really is. Thank you so much, sir. Thanks for what you do.
ARD: Appreciate it.
HANNITY: Thanks.
ARD: Yes, sir.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: And coming up -- earlier today, I also spoke with some Louisiana residents. They have lost everything. We're going to play you that coming up next.
Plus, we'll also speak with some of these great volunteers right here at the Greenwell Springs Baptist Church. That and more as "Hannity" continues from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come with me this way, I'll show you my dad's house. This is where a lot of my childhood memories were. The demo (ph) is absolutely atrocious in here. They're removing a lot of the debris, getting the mold remediated. It's a very, very, very tough process to see, a lot of memories of the home. You know, this is where a lot of my memories are throughout my life. We just lost my mom in October, and a lot of her memories through (ph) me were in this home, and now it's gone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And that's home after home, block after block, neighborhood after neighborhood. And we're broadcasting tonight from Greenwell Springs. We're in Louisiana.
Now, today, I had the chance to talk to the residents of this great state. Most of them had their homes completely and utterly destroyed. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: How did you get out? This happened so fast. What happened?
JUDY WARREN, FLOOD VICTIM: On a boat. They backed it up right there, and they just shoved me in the boat and took me out.
HANNITY: And how fast did the water start coming into your house?
WARREN: Oh, pretty fast.
HANNITY: Wow.
WARREN: I was in there, and I looked out and my patio was dry. And I looked out again, and it was -- and I thought, Holy cow. And before they got me on the boat, the water was coming in.
HANNITY: Wow. So you had everybody in every house having to get on a boat?
WARREN: Yes, just about.
HANNITY: Wow. And I'm looking in front of your yard. Everything that you've had and saved your whole life.
WARREN: That's part of my life. Part of my life's in that truck. Part of my life's on this table.
HANNITY: Yes.
WARREN: And my son and daughter-in-law are still walking around. So you know, that's good.
HANNITY: What do you think? The country has not caught this and understood this.
WARREN: I hate to say this...
HANNITY: No. Say it.
WARREN: ... -because I love America. I don't want to live anywhere else, and I know our crew does the best that they can do.
HANNITY: Right.
WARREN: But I don't think Washington gives a hoot about anybody but their pockets.
HANNITY: Did you see the president playing golf during all this?
WARREN: No, I didn't because I don't have a TV.
HANNITY: I got that. But you know he was playing golf.
WARREN: Oh, I'm sure he was.
HANNITY: Yes. Let me just show everybody -- if you don't mind, I'm going to look at your garage. Is that OK?
WARREN: Go ahead.
HANNITY: OK. If you look over here -- so the water came up to here. And inside your house, the same thing?
WARREN: You can go through the house if you want to because it's -- the sheetrock is coming down. The cabinets are out. Everything.
HANNITY: And this is not a flood zone. You don't have flood insurance.
WARREN: No, I don't have flood insurance because they told me when that flood of '83 came through, and then when I bought this house, they told me that this house did not flood.
HANNITY: You're also going to have to rebuild the whole inside of that house. Your country needs to help you now, you know that.
WARREN: I know that, but you know...
HANNITY: I have a pretty loud megaphone, you know, and a big mouth.
WARREN: What we have in Washington, I don't know.
HANNITY: No, I agree with you. I'm so sorry. I am. Thank you for sharing your time with us.
WARREN: You're welcome.
HANNITY: And I'm so glad you made it out OK.
WARREN: Well, I am, too, so -- but thank you very much. I hope you can help us out.
HANNITY: I'm looking at everything you own right behind you. I'm looking -- every one of your neighbors going down for miles, everything's out of the house. I'm so sorry. This has got to be horrible.
EDDIE STEELE, FLOOD VICTIM: Well, yes, I mean, you know, we got three houses that flooded. We got two rentals and our own home, and we're having to redo all of them. And you know, no income, and...
HANNITY: So you're taking off work to do this.
STEELE: Yes, yes.
HANNITY: And -- and...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm Kim and...
HANNITY: By the way, Kim said she dressed up for this.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: She was going, Wait a minute. I got to get dressed. No. You know what? People need to see how hard you work, and you get to get all of this stuff out of your house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly. Exactly. It's a struggle, you know. And every day, we wake up, try to come out here, do a little bit. And I just pray that we stay healthy enough to be able to do it, you know, and just finding help is hard because everybody's in the same situation.
HANNITY: And Eric, you're just a friend. You came down to help your friends?
ERIC BLAKE, FLOOD VICTIM: I lost my home, too. Everything we own is gone.
HANNITY: Wow. Now, I know this is a dumb question. This is a non-flood zone. I just talked a lot of your neighbors. They don't have flood insurance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. And I mean, at least we had flood insurance on two of them, and...
HANNITY: Not this one?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
HANNITY: This is a no flood zone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right. Right. I mean, this house is 40 years old. It hasn't never flooded.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Never come close.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you know, it's just...
HANNITY: What I can't believe, and the sheriff's been telling me all day, this happened, like, immediately.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It did.
HANNITY: And there was no notice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
HANNITY: Walk us through as the water is beginning to rise, and all of a sudden, it gets up to your door and then comes in your house, what was that like?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I mean, this house here, the rental house and the lady that was living here, there wasn't no water in the back. Then all of a sudden, she had to get an air mattress and float out with her kid out of here to get out, it come up so quick.
HANNITY: And I heard the current was brutal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was. We actually live on the Amite River, me and him, and we had to be rescued because the current was so bad, we thought our house -- I thought the house would cave in. But -- so somebody came and got us, and we've been staying with friends and family until, you know, we get it back.
HANNITY: You got in your own boat. How many people do you think you got out?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. A lot.
HANNITY: A lot?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, breaking out windows, saving them out of their attics, off the roofs. You name it, I did it.
HANNITY: And there's a lot of elderly people in the community.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had one of my boats, the current was so strong, it had another boat push me up against the door to get them out. And a helicopter had to come down and rescue them off of my boat.
HANNITY: Because you had no...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) fast enough, they had to come by helicopter.
HANNITY: All right, I know -- I didn't know how bad it was, and then I started talking to people I know, and they said, no, no, you have no idea. And now that I'm here, no -- the country doesn't have an idea.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. That's what -- I mean, we've heard CNN and all of them are just not posting. I mean, not -- nothing.
HANNITY: The sheriff told me nobody's been here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. No. Absolutely not. I mean, we all need help out here.
HANNITY: All right, sir, what's your name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name's Bob Yates (ph).
HANNITY: Now, you're not from here, but you came -- one of your friends lost everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, a couple of doors down.
HANNITY: Yes. You were giving me numbers just a second ago, the numbers of people impacted by this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe there's 137,000 people in Ascension Parish, and I've heard that 100,000 of them are flooded. And that's -- that's a huge number. It's not that same percentage in other areas, but the devastation is Ascension Parish, East Baton Rouge. It's all around.
HANNITY: Everywhere. And you know, we're in Livingston now. And you know, you said something to me that kind of struck me. Every house on this block has everything that they own on the front yard, and you said that's all people doing it on their own.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right. There's been very little government assistance to this point. This has been family, friends, people doing their own. And what people need to understand, they're tearing their hearts out of these houses. This is not just stuff.
HANNITY: No, this is their life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My friend's been there for 40 years. Everything that he owns...
HANNITY: Is on his front lawn.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the front lawn.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: And coming up -- when we come back, we'll speak with more victims of this flood, as well as the men and women who are out there helping their neighbors during their time of need.
That and more as we continue from Baton Rouge tonight on "Hannity."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The water was about two feet deep in the house when the fire department came with a rescue boat and took my wife. She's a breast cancer patient, survivor. We got brought to a staging area and rescued. I'm living inside the garage. I put an air conditioner in the window, and my wife is staying with her sister. And I'm staying there cleaning it up. I'm 71, and we'll start over and make it from here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: That's just more of the devastation. Welcome back to HANNITY. And we are in Louisiana where over at least 60,000 homes have been damaged, many destroyed by the floods.
Joining us now, the mayor of the city of Central, Louisiana, J.R. Shelton right here with us. We have Congressman Garret Graves. The lieutenant governor of your great state, Louisiana, Bill Nungesser is with us.
By the way, I do have one question for the audience. You all can clap and agree. Were you glad that Donald Trump came here?
(APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: And when you saw the president day after day playing golf, did it bother you?
CROWD: Yes.
HANNITY: How much, a lot?
CROWD: Yes.
HANNITY: And then Hillary also, she called your governor. Is that phoning it in to you all? I can't hear you.
(BOOS)
HANNITY: Mr. Mayor, first of all, I'm sorry. I got to meet these wonderful people, volunteers that have come from as far as Lynchburg, Virginia. I see the kids from Liberty here to help you out, Franklin Graham, Samaritan's Purse. But this is not going to go away in a week, a month, six months, or a year.
J.R. SHELTON, MAYOR OF CENTRAL CITY, LOUISIANA: Oh, no. We're a city of 27,000 folks. I can tell you 25,000 of them have been affected by this.
HANNITY: Wow.
SHELTON: And 90 percent of our homes have been destroyed.
HANNITY: Wow.
SHELTON: So we're in for a long, long haul here. However, I want to tell you that the city of Central is very resilient. It's neighbor helping neighbor. We're not relying on anybody else. We're not waiting for $400 million that might have gone to Iran to come to us. We're here taking care of ourselves.
HANNITY: Wow.
(APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: Congressman, what really shocked me today, and we just aired some of this, is a lot of people impacted by this, they don't live in a flood zone. They didn't have flood insurance. What can be done on a national level to help? Like I love what Samaritan's Purse is doing. I love what my buddy, Tony Perkins, is doing. But that's just to get people through the day and through the weeks and put food in their stomachs. But what can the government do to help them? This seems to be one of those moments they need to step up.
REP. GARRET GRAVES, R-LA.: Absolutely. Sean, we have been through disasters here before. This storm caused 31 inches of rain in some of these communities in just a few days. And 31 inches of rain is what the national annual average rainfall is, and we got it in two days. So this is a once in a lifetime, once in a thousand-year type storm. There needs to be a more robust federal recovery package that --
HANNITY: Have you talked to the president?
GRAVES: I haven't spoken to the president.
HANNITY: Was he too busy golfing?
GRAVES: Yes. I had a chance to talk to some other folks.
HANNITY: Sorry, I couldn't resist. I know.
GRAVES: I certainly plan on talking to him about it tomorrow.
HANNITY: Lieutenant governor, good to see you. By the way, I was impressed. You have a Democratic governor in the state. You're a Republican lieutenant governor, and I was impressed that it seemed that both the governor and even Mary Landrieu doesn't particularly like me, had some good things to say about those people that are bringing attention to this terrible problem down here.
BILLY NUNGESSER, R-LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA: Absolutely. We've got to work together. With the FEMA rules, if you didn't have flood insurance, we need donations, we need people to step up, as these neighbors have done. Neighbor helping neighbor. We're not going to be waiting. We're gutting homes. We're going to go in and rebuild homes and take those citizens that didn't have flood insurance through private donations.
HANNITY: That was 90 percent of this community.
NUNGESSER: I know. But we can't wait. We've got to go to work.
HANNITY: But it's beyond that, because I've been in these homes. You've got to not only gut it. I think the only thing you might be able to save is the shell. I used to be in construction.
NUNGESSER: Absolutely.
HANNITY: So everything else is out.
NUNGESSER: Absolutely.
HANNITY: That means you're basically building a new home for everybody, and if there's no insurance, what are these people going to do?
NUNGESSER: We've got to give them home. We've got to be able to work as a team and start working to rebuild these houses. And day after day it's going to get better. It's a long haul. Hopefully there will be some help from the federal government. But it's going to take private donations. I wrote my check the other day while my wife was here volunteering. Donald Trump left a check.
HANNITY: I'm going to write a check.
NUNGESSER: We could use one from the Clinton Foundation. If she's not going to come, we'll take her check.
(APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: I just want to warn you, that money may have come in Saudi Arabia where they don't treat women, gays, lesbians, Christian, and Jews too well.
NUNGESSER: I think everybody that cares about Louisiana should write a check and help out.
HANNITY: You got one from me, I promise.
SHELTON: Sean, I promise you Central will come back bigger and stronger than ever. This community, while we've been devastated, we have not lost our heart. And we're going to continue to do whatever it takes for us to come back. Garret Graves has been wonderful, Billy Nungesser has been wonderful. We have folks that are friends in the government, and they will be here to take care of us.
HANNITY: Yes. Last thing -- what do you think you can do in terms of getting your fellow congressmen to step up?
GRAVES: I've already been in touch with the speaker's office. I've been instructed to be in touch with the majority leader's office. We're going to be bringing members of Congress down here.
HANNITY: Speaker Ryan needs to come down here.
GRAVES: We're going to be bringing folks down here to let them see it firsthand. You can't understand this unless you see it. The scope and the devastation here is --
HANNITY: I work with my camera crew and these guys have been with me 20 years, some of them. They've been with me forever, and we were all shocked. What we kept saying to each other is television does not capture this.
GRAVES: It doesn't.
HANNITY: It's unbelievable.
NUNGESSER: A hurricane will affect a couple parishes. This is over 20 parishes spread across all of the middle of Louisiana.
HANNITY: The sheriff said to me -- here's an interesting line. He said, this was a hurricane without the wind, and it affected almost as many people.
NUNGESSER: And they didn't have flood insurance. Along the coast, you know they have flood insurance. A thousand-year event, as the congressman said, it wasn't expected to have flood insurance. So this is devastating these people that have no means to rebuild.
HANNITY: I spoke to this poor woman. She literally has to move to Florida to be with her family or she has no place to live. Are you going to have enough rooms, beds, to put these people?
SHELTON: We will find places for them.
HANNITY: OK.
SHELTON: We will find places for them. Sean, I've been asked about how big the flood was. I'm not trying to be flip, but noah would have had a problem with this flood.
HANNITY: Listen, I'm not -- I was kidding around before. I agree. This is beyond imagination.
GRAVES: This is one of these examples we've seen over and over again where you're spending billions of dollars after a flood instead of spending millions before. There was a Corps of Engineers project that dates back to the 1980s that could have prevented this. The project has been in the study and construction phase since the 1980s that could have prevented --
HANNITY: Only government could screw up that badly.
GRAVES: It's unbelievable.
HANNITY: We're going to take a break. When we come back right after the break, we're going to continue from the Greenwell Springs Baptist Church in Louisiana. You've got volunteers from all over the country right here to help the people in this great community as we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: All right, we're back in Baton Rouge. And of course we have hundreds of thousands of people now devastated, losing their homes. But there's another story to tell, and that's neighbor helping neighbor. As the floodwaters rose and the currents were strong, it was amazing how every single person that had a boat, all hands on deck. They got every person out of there.
You were one of the people saved, right? I have a picture of you. I'm going to put it up on TV right now. Hi.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.
HANNITY: What's your name?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Minnie (ph) May (ph) Jones (ph).
HANNITY: Very nice to meet you. I saw you on the boat. You didn't want to leave your house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. I got up that morning, ate my cereal, drank my coffee, read my paper and straightened up my house.
HANNITY: I bet you regret that now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had water in the ditch in front of my house, but I never dreamed it was going to do this. And then I decided to go look in my backyard, and lo and behold, their came water from the back. So I got it from the back and the front.
HANNITY: So then it started coming in your house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
HANNITY: How high was it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It had gotten up to -- my house kind of goes up like that, you know. Oh, I guess it's a good 10 feet or 20 feet up there.
HANNITY: About six feet of water.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: About six feet of water in your house?
HANNITY: In my house I got six feet of water.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many years did you live there?
HANNITY: I've been there since 1957.
HANNITY: Oh, my gosh. All right, now, I heard -- and you tell me if I'm wrong -- you didn't want to leave the house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not really, I didn't.
HANNITY: And they had to pull you out with a boat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, they took me out with a boat.
HANNITY: I see the picture, we'll put it up on the screen, you in the boat with a dog.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's not my dog.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't even have a dog.
HANNITY: That's got to be hard on you. You know, that's your home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I'm too old for this.
HANNITY: I think everybody is. Well, you know what, you have all these great people here that want to help you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly.
HANNITY: The person that got you in that boat, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
HANNITY: Thank God for that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Thank God for that.
HANNITY: Well, God bless you. A lot of Americans as a result of this, they're going to donate money and help you rebuild your home, OK?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's wonderful.
HANNITY: OK? And it will be better -- since 1957, you're just getting started.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I am.
HANNITY: God bless you. Thank you so much. Let's give this woman a hand. She's awesome.
(APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: All right. Now, I think -- where's the guy? Here you are. I'm looking for you. What happened to you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shoulder surgery.
HANNITY: Rotator? I got to get that too, but I'm not doing it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When this first started, I wanted to help my friends rescue before it came to our house. My wife said, you're crazy. You're not going out with that shoulder like that. Little did I know the next morning I had to launch my own boat in my own yard and get my family out and all my neighbors, elderly people, kids, in my boat with one arm. There were people walking down the street, these older men. I just pulled them into the boat with one arm. The fear in their eyes was unbelievable.
HANNITY: Isn't that the real story here, thought? There were thousands of people saved with these boats, and there was no government boat. They were all individual boats.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you even saw there was a young lady like the lady you just talked to, and she had her walker, and the walker was completely submerged and she was walking down the driveway into deeper water. So I turned and went to her and we held her there until somebody else had a better boat to get her in. And then I turned back to getting other people.
HANNITY: You did this all with your shoulder banged up?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. My doctor wasn't happy, but it's OK.
HANNITY: Thank you. You know what, he's one of the heroes, right, as all of you, here. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're just part of the Cajun Navy was we call it. Nobody left behind.
HANNITY: Fishing? I think we have home building to do. I used to be a contractor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to take a break sometime.
HANNITY: That's true.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, how are you doing? I saw you earlier. You're an old vet. You've got a Purple Heart.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Vietnam.
(APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: What happened from your perspective?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Water came up so fast.
HANNITY: Look at this. You're getting a standing ovation.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It came up so fast you didn't have time. I had a neighbor put stuff up on bricks, but two and a half feet of water in your hours, bricks don't help. My wife is in Massachusetts at the time. I spent two nights with one of the men, Norma Jenkins (ph), they're right down the street. My house went under so I stayed with them. We lost power.
But God is good. I have a family here that just helped us tear up sheet rock. I have six grandkids and three daughters and my wife came back to this devastation. But we're blessed. You know, this is my church.
HANNITY: I love it when people say I lost my house, everything I own, but I'm blessed. That is a lot of faith there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is. But that is all we have. We don't have a home. Ms. Minnie (ph) May (ph) Jones, (ph) I want to tell you, she is the matriarch of the neighborhood. My kids grew up, I have two daughters here. Y'all stand up.
HANNITY: Hi.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They grew up with her and all her kids. Miss Minnie (ph) May (ph) is the rock of the neighborhood.
HANNITY: I can tell. I think we ought to make you deputy mayor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. Yes. I agree.
(APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: Listen, thank you. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And thanks for being here and bringing attention to this.
By the way, we're putting on the screen, Samaritan's Purse, there's a lot of places. That is Franklin Graham's group. They have been doing a lot of work down here. Tony Perkins church, where we are, anything you can do to help. I'm going to help. Donald Trump helped. Hillary, step up. You know, these people are dying down here. They need -- their whole lives have been upended. Anything you can do to help, it's up on my website, Hannity.com, and you can see it right on the bottom of the screen.
We'll take a quick break. More from Baton Rouge as we continue, "HANNITY on the Road."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: All right, we're back at Greenwell Springs Baptist Church, 90 plus percent of this community impacted by the flooding. And this is going to be a long time fixing. You guys here with the church locally?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tony Perkins, yes. We work with here at Greenwell Springs Baptist Church. And it's a good example of when faith-based organizations come together. Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse came down, and just Tony's reach and relationships with people across the country. They've all come down just to help. Trump being here was amazing, a shot in the arm for people that are hopeless, until they see that they're not forgotten. Let me take that back. They're not hopeless. They have Christ.
HANNITY: God bless you. Amen to that. And you're with my buddy. I have known Franklin Graham and I've known Tony Perkins forever. I just wrote him a note. He's a good man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you so much.
HANNITY: Thank you for what you're doing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Samaritan's Purse came in right after the flood. We had a call from Tony. They needed help. And we were happy to respond, partner with the church. We're sending out volunteers daily to help with gutting and mudding out of the homes. We helped Miss Minnie (ph) May (ph) just earlier this week.
HANNITY: She should be the mayor. She's amazing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She is amazing.
HANNITY: I have to say one thing, because all that you're doing is so important. I was on trips with Franklin Graham. I went to Haiti and the Dominican Republic with him. What you're doing is unbelievable.
They're yelling in my ear. These kids are all from Lynchburg, Virginia, Liberty University. I'm friends with President Falwell. I'm going to tell them, President Falwell, give all these kids A-pluses.
(APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: All right, from Baton Rouge, try to help out. Samaritan's Purse, Tony Perkins church, all the information is on Hannity.com, FoxNews.com. We'll see you in Austin, Texas, with Donald Trump, town hall tomorrow night. Thanks for being with us.
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