The Louisiana Economic Outlook report shows the state’s economy will remain stagnant over the next year. Emelie Gunn has more…
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The sky was ablaze this morning in Webster parish, as some of the explosives being stored at Camp Minden blew up in a bunker. Jeff Palermo has more…
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The Louisiana Economic Outlook shows the state will lose 17-thousand jobs this year because of low oil prices. LSU economist Dr. Loren Scott released the report and says the state has been in a recession since August of 2015…
The report says Lafayette lost 9-thousand jobs this year and is expected to lose 5-thousand more in 2017. Scott says the big problem in the Lafayette and Houma areas is the decline of working oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.
Scott says job growth will remain flat in Shreveport, Monroe, Alexandria and New Orleans, while Baton Rouge and Lake Charles will see employment gains because of the industrial boom.
Scott doesn’t believe the flooding will impact the economy but will create an uptick in construction employment.
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An explosion lit up the sky at Camp Minden in Webster Parish around 5:00 this morning. The Louisiana National Guard reports a storage bunker filled with M6 propellant exploded. Crews have been working around the clock to destroy these explosives, which were improperly stored several years ago. Minden Representative Gene Reynolds says thankfully no one was injured.
Explosive Service International is responsible for the destruction of all 15 million pounds of explosives being stored at Camp Minden. Reynolds says it’s not a surprise the explosives spontaneously went off.
Louisiana State Police is conducting an investigation into the blast. Over 6.2 million pounds of the propellant has been destroyed since the operation began in April. Reynolds says he wouldn’t be shocked if this happened again before all the M6 has been destroyed.
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Congress has approved $400 million for flood recovery efforts in Louisiana, but when that money will be available to flood victims is still up in the air. Lafayette City-Parish president Joel Robideaux says people are looking for answers, and that’s something local officials can’t give them right now.
Robideaux sits on the Recovery Louisiana Task Force and he says they hope to come up with some kind of solution in the next few weeks. He says one option to get immediate aid to people could be a bridge loan from a bank, similar to what was done for small businesses after Katrina.
Robideaux says 4-thousand homes were impacted in Lafayette parish. He says they have a lot of questions, and solutions are hard to come by. But he says Lafayette residents are resilient, and they are doing what they can while they wait for answers.
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A video of a Louisiana man dancing in the delivery room around his pregnant wife has gone viral. The DeSoto Parish dancing daddy, 29-year-old Sky Jones, says he made the video to cheer up the people in his hometown, after a man was shot and killed a few days before.
Jones’ Facebook video has more than 11-thousand views, and it has been shared nearly 200 times. He says while his followers enjoyed the video, his wife was not pleased when he was dancing around her hospital bed to Starrkeisha’s song “The Baby Momma Dance.”
Cut 13 (09) “afterward (laugh)”
Jones says he didn’t expect the video to go viral. He says he was excited about the birth of his first biological son, Sky Jones Jr. He says he’s gotten a positive reaction to the video.
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