It is not "swamps and farms."

Go to mapquest and zoom in. There are lots of tiny communities throughout the area, which is lowlands with lakes and bayous.

Cameron Parish alone is home to about 10,000 people and approximately 1/3 of its land is water. About 13,000 people come to visit for the annual Cajun festival, and about 20,000 come per month to the wildlife refuges there, in much the same way that many go to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in MN.

Vermillion Parish just to the east has over 50,000 people.

News reports say that Terrebone Parish took 7 to 8 feet of water.

Water is continuing to rise in Lake Charles.

From Steve Gregory's blog: " we are again seeing 'initial media' reports of not so bad -- only to find out hours later that there was and is extremely bad damage -- but the media just wasn't there. Overall -- it appears this storm produced the same type and scope of damage that IVAN did last year "

He also said that as of 11:30am a strong feeder band was still producing gusts of hurricane strength to the east of Lafayette all the way down to Grand Isle (which is the tip of Jefferson Parish). Since then it appears this band has moved north and is over Jackson MS.