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My niece lives in Baton Rouge. She texted me that she saw FEMA employees near one of the downtown hotels. That's what they do first - go to the area and meet with state agency people and evaluate.

Unless federal funding is provided under the terms of the Stafford Act (and the state accepts responsibility for its' portion of the expenses), that's probably where it ends as far as FEMA's involvement.

IIRC, that's what happened with the BP oil spill. A bunch of feds went down to look things over, then their presence was minimized because there was no Stafford Act declaration that unlocked the funding (the Disaster Fund was probably empty at that time, anyway).