Meg Farris / Eyewitness News
NEW ORLEANS -- People across the area flooded our newsroom with their home videos and pictures when they woke up to find their streets and front lawns underwater.
We tracked down some of those viewers to hear what was going on in their neighborhoods when they became part of our news coverage.
When the skies opened this morning, WWL-TV photographers hit the road to capture the deluge. But we also had many other eyes out in the field.
We call them our eyewitnesses, viewers scattered throughout that bowl we call Greater New Orleans. Patricia LeBlanc in the Walnut Bend subdivision in Algiers was one of them who sent in pictures.
"The water, it was just coming up and a couple of cars got stuck," said LeBlanc.
Even though her property is raised high above the street level of MacArthur Boulevard, the water still pushed into her garage. Much of the new top soil she put down last week washed away and cars even drove up on her lawn to pass on higher ground.
One woman out walking on the street was in waist deep water. That's when she took out her phone and documented the flooding.
"I hate that it happens to everyone around the city. I find myself in the same boat," LeBlanc said.
Pictures also came in from Belle Chasse. Robert and Shelley Marque, a Harvey firefighter and his wife, woke up to a landscape that looked like they owned waterfront property. By midday the water had gone down, but their experience is part of the news archives now, airing on the newscast, posted on WWLTV.com and Facebook.
Shelley Marque said she depends on these so-called citizen journalists to keep her in the know.
"Actually yes, because they are the ones out there and they see what's going on and they are able to give us information on how things look around," Shelley Marque said.
And with today's electronic media, it's as simple as pulling out your smart phone, taking a picture and then e-mailing it directly to Channel 4.
And in all, around 125 citizen eyewitnesses became part of Eyewitness News. Many of those viewers who sent in pictures complained that people are still driving their cars too fast through flooding, causing wakes that push water into their homes.
If you want to send in a picture or video of any weather or news event, send it to eyewitness@wwltv.com or through either of our free smartphone apps: the WWL-TV app or the NOLA weather app, which also has live radar for locations across the Gulf Coast, plus the latest forecast and severe weather alerts.
