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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Gov. John Bel Edwards is asking President Joe Biden for $3 billion to help Louisiana with its ongoing recovery from the 2020 hurricanes, saying Tuesday that he’s filed a request with the new White House similar to the unfulfilled ask he made of the prior administration.

The Democratic governor talked of the block grant assistance he’s seeking during a trip to hard-hit Lake Charles to discuss the work to recover from Hurricanes Laura and Delta. Congressional approval is needed if the state is to receive the money.

“I feel very confident that we will get it because the president has told me he understands what the needs are, he’s going to be helpful,” the governor said. “We have a former Louisiana congressman (Cedric Richmond) working in the White House right now, and every time he speaks about what the priorities are, he mentions Louisiana’s hurricane recovery efforts.”

The aid request, made in a formal letter to the White House, seeks dollars that can be spent to help rebuild people’s homes, create affordable rental housing, modernize infrastructure and harden against future storm threats, Edwards said. He’d also like some money to be available for state and local government agencies to pay their share of federal assistance costs for disaster removal, direct aid to families and other response work.

Laura ravaged southwest Louisiana, striking Aug. 27 as a Category 4 storm just south of Lake Charles. Less than two months later, Delta swept into the same area as a Category 2 storm last October. Nearly 47,000 homes were damaged by Laura across 21 parishes, most in the Lake Charles region, according to state estimates. Projections from disaster modeling firm Karen Clark & Co. put the combined insured U.S. losses from Laura and Delta at nearly $10 billion.

Some families with destroyed homes still are living in tents or are unable to get home. Edwards said 684 evacuees remain sheltered by the state in hotels in New Orleans and Lafayette.

Still, Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter struck a note of optimism Tuesday at a news briefing with the governor. He said the initial “dark and scary” worst-case scenarios of his city suffering widespread water and power outages for months didn’t happen, and people are working to rebuild their homes and their lives.

“Absolutely, there’s room for improvement. Absolutely, we wish that certain things were moving quicker,” Hunter said. But he added: “I believe that we are well on our way to recovery.”

Edwards said he hopes the Democratic-controlled Congress will earmark hurricane recovery block grant aid to Louisiana by spring. The state’s congressional delegation is pushing the request as well, and Edwards said U.S. House and Senate leaders have said they support sending assistance to the state.

The governor sent former President Donald Trump a similar letter in November asking for hurricane recovery help, saying the individual assistance grants handed out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency won’t be enough to rebuild.

That request didn’t bring block grant aid to Louisiana.

As he asked for more assistance, Edwards stressed Tuesday that federal aid so far has aided thousands of people and businesses. He said FEMA has given Laura and Delta victims $250 million for housing assistance and other needs, and he said the U.S. Small Business Administration has approved $627 million in low-interest loans.

“The assistance that we’ve received thus far has been substantial,” the governor said. “It’s just insufficient to do everything that we need to do.”

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Follow Melinda Deslatte on Twitter at http://twitter.com/melindadeslatte.

MATHEWS, La. (AP) — A man’s body has been recovered from a Louisiana bayou, authorities said Tuesday.

In a news release, Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said deputies believe the body is that of a man who ran from deputies a day earlier.

Deputies responded to a call of a suspicious vehicle just before midnight Monday in a parking lot in Mathews and found a man sitting inside. While speaking to the man, he ran and jumped into Bayou Lafourche. That’s when deputies lost sight of him.

Webre said his office searched through the night for the man but couldn’t find him. The search continued Tuesday morning, and a body was recovered from the water matching the man’s description.

The man’s name has not been released

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — You just can’t keep a good city down, especially when Mardi Gras is coming.

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All around New Orleans, thousands of houses are being decorated as floats because the coronavirus outbreak canceled the elaborate parades mobbed by crowds during the Carnival season leading to Fat Tuesday.

Some smaller groups announced no-parade plans before the city did. Pandemic replacements include scavenger hunts for signature trinkets that normally would be thrown from floats or handed out from a streetcar, as well as outdoor art and drive-thru or virtual parades. The prominent Krewe of Bacchus has an app where people can catch and trade virtual trinkets during Carnival and watch a virtual parade Feb. 14, when the parade had been scheduled.

But the “house float” movement started almost as soon as a New Orleans spokesman announced Nov. 17 that parades were off.

That morning, Megan Joy Boudreaux posted what she later called a silly Twitter joke: “We’re doing this. Turn your house into a float and throw all the beads from your attic at your neighbors walking by.”

But the more she thought about it, the more she liked it. She started a Facebook group, the Krewe of House Floats, expecting a few friends and neighbors to join. The numbers rose. Thirty-nine subgroups evolved to discuss neighborhood plans.

By Carnival season’s official start Jan. 6, the group had more than 9,000 members, including out-of-state “expats.” About 3,000, including a few as far afield as England and Australia, will have their houses on an official online map, said Charlotte “Charlie” Jallans-Daly, one of two mapmakers.

Houses are to be decorated at least two weeks before Fat Tuesday, which is Feb. 16 this year. With widespread addresses and two weeks to gawk, the hope is that people will spread out widely in time and space.

“I didn’t think I was starting a Mardi Gras krewe. Here I am,” Boudreaux said. “I’ve got myself a second full-time job.”

Discussions in the Facebook groups include how-tos, ads for props and neighborhood themes. Artists have given livestreamed outdoor lessons.

Katie Bankens posted that her block’s theme was Shark Week staycation paradise. When a resident worried that she was not “crafty” enough, administrator Carley Sercovich replied that if they could play music and throw trinkets to neighbors, “you are perfect for this Krewe!”

Boudreaux also suggested that people could hire or buy from out-of-work Carnival artists and suppliers hit by the parade cancellation. A spreadsheet of artists and vendors followed. One of them, artist Dominic “Dom” Graves, booked more than 20 five-person classes in professional papier mache techniques, at $100 a person.

Devin DeWulf, who already had started two pandemic charities as head of the Krewe of Red Beans walking club, kicked the house float idea up a few notches at the suggestion of Caroline Thomas, a professional float designer. Their “Hire a Mardi Gras Artist” crowdfunded lotteries collected enough money to put crews to work decorating 11 houses, plus commissioned work at two more houses and seven businesses.

“We’ve put about 40 people to work, which is nice,” DeWulf said. With Mardi Gras approaching, he said a 12th lottery would be the last.

One commissioned house is rented by a pair of nuns.

Sisters Mary Ann Specha and Julie Walsh, who run a shelter for homeless women with children, had to get permission for their own crowdfunding from the motherhouse of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dubuque, Iowa. “They loved it,” Specha said.

The crowdfunded decorations may be auctioned after Mardi Gras to raise more money, DeWulf said.

Several mansions along a short stretch of St. Charles Avenue had elaborate displays with signs noting their creation by one of the city’s biggest float-making studios.

Tom Fox, whose wife, Madeline, painted a Spongebob Squarepants scene and made jellyfish from dollar store bowls, said he thinks a new tradition may have begun.

“Even when Mardi Gras comes back, I think people are going to keep doing this,” he said.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Sightings of erratic raccoons have prompted officials at New Orleans City Park to put up warning signs about the infected animals, who can pose a danger to pets.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries told WWL-TV on Monday that the raccoons have canine distemper, a virus that affects a wide variety of mammals and can be deadly to cats and dogs.

Officials from the agency were brought in for an inspection after officials at the park received reports about the erratic raccoons, City Park COO Robert DeVeney said. While the infected animals do not pose a danger to humans, officials are concerned about pets and reminding people to keep their dogs on a leash.

“If you’re letting your dog loose off of the leash and the dog has not been vaccinated against canine distemper, you run the risk of them interacting with one of these sick raccoons,” DeVeney said.

The virus can be transmitted through contact with an infected raccoon or its feces. For many park visitors, the warning signs serves as a reminder to protect their pets. But others are taking it seriously due to other concerns.

“I haven’t seen any, but I am kind of on my guard in case there are some crazy raccoons that are going to nibble at my toes,” Benjamin Dominach told the news outlet.

LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — A hate crime charge has been added to attempted murder in the case of a gay Louisiana teenager who was attacked by another teen he met on a dating app last year.

Police initially said the evidence did not support a hate crime in the attack on Holden White, who spent days in a coma and nearly a month in the hospital and still does not have full use of both hands. White said the other teen wrapped a cord around his neck so tightly he lost consciousness and that he woke up in a bathtub where the assailant repeatedly slashed his wrists.

“I was saying my final words to myself, which were just, ‘Stay calm,’” White told KLFY-TV.

The Lafayette Parish District Attorney’s Office added the hate crime charge to the case against Chance Seneca on Jan. 20. Seneca earlier pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted second-degree murder in last June’s attack, and he remains jailed on a $250,000 bond. His next pretrial hearing is March 3.

Prosecutor Donald Knecht declined comment, citing the pending case. Seneca’s attorney, J. Clay LeJeune, said he had not been told why the hate crime charge was added “at this late date,” but his client will also plead not guilty to it.

White is convinced the attack was premeditated and that he was targeted because he’s gay. He said they met on Grindr, a dating app for gay, bisexual and transgender men. White, of Lafayette, was 18 at the time, and Seneca was 19.

After talking for a month, they decided to meet in person. White said Seneca picked him up and took him to a relative’s home to play video games. They talked awkwardly, he recalled. White said his next memory is of being pulled backward by a cord, choked so hard that blood vessels ruptured all over his face. He said he woke up in a bathtub as Seneca sliced his wrists.

“The water is running, and it’s cold,” he told The Acadiana Advocate.

Lafayette police said Seneca was at the scene when authorities responded. White was found with deep cuts to both wrists, multiple stab wounds and blunt force trauma to the back of his head, the Advocate said.

But police did not initially recommend a hate crime charge, even though White’s family accused Seneca of targeting him because he’s gay. Lafayette Police Sgt. Wayne Griffin said right after the attack that preliminary evidence indicated it was not a hate crime and that Seneca and White had gotten into an argument.

White said the attack has left him with diminished function in his left hand, but he is determined to move on.

“I’m a survivor,” he told The Advocate.