BATON ROUGE, La. — An Indianola family escaped historic flooding in Louisiana this weekend that has affected at least 40,000 homes and left eight people dead.

Des Moines television station KCCI reports that Dennis Hendrickson, who works for the Indianola-based company Des Moines Metro Opera, and his family were driving south to help relocate their son to a new job at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when they were inundated with heavy torrential rains that flooded the hotel parking lot.

As the hotel lobby filled with 3 feet of water, the building was evacuated. Hendrickson said his family and other guests were accompanied onto a flotilla of fishing and crawfish boats, eventually being ferried to a shelter. Their son’s temporary Baton Rouge home was swallowed up by floodwaters, but the Hendrickson family said they are grateful to be safe.

They are mulling options on their son’s home and their abandoned vehicle, which was ruined during the rainstorm, and hope to return to Indianola by the end of the week.