Area dodges worst of hurricane season, improvements succor

While hurricane season, which concluded Monday, may have kept area officials busy with preparation from threatening storms, overall, the area was fortunate not to have major impacts, St. Mary Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness Director David Naquin said Wednesday.
The 2020 season was the most active on record, and St. Mary Parish officials prepared for nine hurricanes, even though five made landfall in Louisiana.
Naquin said preparations begin for the parish officials when storms are in the Gulf of Mexico, just in case it comes to the area, “because as we knew this year, it don’t matter where they say it’s going. Until it’s two days out, three days out, then they’re like 90% on the money, but until then, you have to prepare. You can’t wait.”
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the season had 30 named storms this year, the most on record in a year.
“The only other large year that we had was 2005,” Naquin said. “That was the Katrina year where we had 28 named storms.”
Of those 30, 12 hit the United States, and five struck Louisiana. Naquin said the state actually was impacted by eight storms, though.
In September alone, there were 12 named storms, and Naquin said on Sept. 14, his office was tracking five storms: Sally, Paulette, Rene, Teddy and Vicky.
One new protection provided this season was in the Centerville area where the North Bend project, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ project, was completed this year. While the Cabot Corp. area flooded from tropical system Barry during the 2019 hurricane season, it did not this year with this updated protection, St. Mary Parish Levee District Executive Director Tim Matte said.
Among the notable storms that had area officials’ eye were hurricanes Laura and Delta, which both struck southwest Louisiana.
“Laura was one that scared us,” Naquin said. “Delta was one that really scared us, because those land falling hurricanes where the eye passes to our west causes us the biggest heartburn. I’d rather take a direct hit. You take a direct hit, you get the wind. You’re going to get the wind anyway, but you don’t get the water. People to our east get the water if you take a direct hit.”
For Hurricane Delta, the St. Mary Parish Levee District provided temporary protection for residents in the Franklin area that will be protected in the future by the Bayou Teche Floodgate. While the project still is under construction, in the interim, sheet piling closed the opening during Delta.
“We’ve received a lot of comments from the residents across the Teche in Franklin who definitely noticed that it was effective in keeping their flooding abated,” Matte said.
A barge that will be utilized to seal off the opening recently was delivered, and the project will be finished by the beginning of the 2021 hurricane season.
“So that’s a plus,” Matte said.
Protection from Delta also was provided following an emergency closure at the East-West Tie-in, located south of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The protection still is in place and will provide some protection next year, Matte said.
As for a hurricane’s location, Naquin said the worst case for St. Mary Parish would be a landfall around Intracoastal City and Pecan Island.
“That’s exactly what Barry did (last year),” he said. “Delta wasn’t far from it, but it was just enough to the west of Intracoastal City that it spared us a little bit.”
While the season was challenging enough, another factor that had to be considered was the COVID-19 pandemic.
St. Mary and St. Martin parishes have a contract with Rapides Parish Coliseum where they normally could bring as many as 900 combined evacuees. However, due to COVID, that combined number from the two parishes dropped to 50.
Naquin said he understood the reasoning for the drop and was glad the parish had enough notice to consider other plans, if needed.
Ultimately, evacuees were housed in hotels, some of which came to St. Mary Parish from Lake Charles due to Laura and Delta.
Moving forward, Naquin said he thought there would be a shift from using big shelters. He said it would be something “almost impossible” to get people to utilize even after the COVID-19 pandemic concludes “unless it’s really a major problem with nothing else you can do, and it’s always supposed to have been that way, a last resort kind of thing.”
He said St. Mary Parish is “exploring” the option of getting a local shelter for a small amount of people.
However, if the plans would come to fruition, Naquin said the parish would be responsible for all shelter operations because it is south of Interstate 10.
Moving forward, one specific project Matte mentioned is work along the Charenton Canal that will provide protection to the residents as well as to Metal Shark and Gulf Craft.
“Our emergency efforts in that particular area thus far have left them unprotected,” Matte said of the businesses. “It’s protected the people who live behind those facilities, but not those facilities.”
Matte said the district has state funding to match local dollars for the project, which currently is in the design phase.
While he said he wasn’t sure it would be complete for hurricane season next year, Matte said the project should be under construction by the next hurricane season.