A 71-year-old man who was attacked by an alligator during Hurricane Ida is missing after disappearing when his wife tried to raise the alarm.
The man was attacked outside his home in New Orleans after Hurricane Ida hit the US, at around noon on Monday.
His wife said she helped him on to the front porch, but he went missing after she went to get help.
Jason Gaubert, a spokesman for the St. Tammany Fire District department said the attack took the elderly victim's arm off and the man is still missing.
Alligators have begun terrorising survivors after Sunday’s historic storm destroyed thousands of homes, left more than a million without power and killed at least two people.
However, the most ominous dangers are now flooding into communities through waters so powerful at one point they reversed the flow of the Mississippi River.
Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said flooded swamplands posed dangers for search and rescue teams and those living in the decimated areas.
"This is an area that has a lot of swampland, alligators, very dangerous conditions," she said.
She added some areas saw flooding that was "beyond chest high. It's up to the top of the roof.”
The southern states have an estimated five million alligators in their waters.
Elsewhere fears of a potential crime wave rose as looting broke out in New Orleans.
Police Chief Shaun Ferguson said: "This will not be tolerated. We have made arrests. This is a state felony and we will be booking you accordingly.
"This is not the time to take opportunities of our vulnerable population right now. We all are vulnerable at this point in time."
Officers have deployed anti-looting teams across New Orleans in an effort to protect property.
Chief Ferguson said the city will work with the National Guard to implement measures to prevent looting and other criminal behaviour as the recovery process begins.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell said that while there was looting, it was not widespread.
"My directive has been very clear: ‘Lock ’em up.’ We will not tolerate it, and we have not tolerated it," she said.
"So we have apprehended those individuals associated with the looting that we have been able to identify."
Several images were posted online of stores reportedly ransacked and trashed.
A group of men were caught by a drone camera trying to rob an ATM machine while witnesses filmed others looting a store in New Orleans East.
The rescue operation is continuing with more than 1,000 people safely picked up and taken to shelters.
Dozens have been helped off roofs which they took to after the Ida passed by.
More than one million people were left without power with energy suppliers saying it could take up to three weeks to restore.
“Based on historical restoration times, customers in the direct path of a storm as intense as Hurricane Ida could experience outages for more than three weeks. While 90 per cent of customers will be restored sooner, customers in the hardest-hit areas should plan for the possibility of experiencing extended power outages," said Deanna Rodriguez, Entergy New Orleans president.
There are approximately 85,000 power outages throughout Louisana, down from 136,000 outages, and 19 shelters remain open.
Ida was downgraded to a tropical depression on Monday after barrelling into Louisana on Sunday with sustained winds of 150mph.
