Deploying new weapons for Stephensville flood fight

STEPHENSVILLE — It was Saturday, one of the season’s first days of muggy, 90-degree heat, and Gov. John Bel Edwards was due to be in Stephensville in an hour.
Nearby, a St. Martin Parish crew of six men and Sarah and Denny Blanchard were working on a couple of tall sand piles along La. 70. They weren’t there to see the governor.
They were were filling sandbags to protect homes and other property.
The battle against back-flooding, which started not long after Mardi Gras, continued as Memorial Day weekend arrived. Last week the news seemed to be getting worse with word that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seemed sure to open the Morganza Spillway to deal with record rainfall in the Mississippi River’s immense basin.
But Saturday brought good news, too. Edwards made the official announcement that a barge would be sunk in Bayou Chene, a flood protection measure that proved effective in three previous foods. Edwards also said the state and federal governments will pay for it.
Edwards made the announcement near a new barrier system that promised to block water from La. 70 and keep the highway open.
The news will be welcome to people like the Blanchards, who are no strangers to filling sandbags. “We came here from Belle River,” said Denny Blanchard with a laugh.
No water has come into their new place on Stephensville Road. The home of Sarah Blanchard’s family on Susan Court in Bayou Estates also has escaped flooding, but not all the problems associated with it.
No water has come into her mother’s home. “Her house is high off the ground,” Sarah Blanchard said. “Their neighbors, yes. But they just couldn’t get to their house.”
The flooding causes other problems you might not think about.
“The transformers keep getting wet,” Denny Blanchard said, “and they keep shorting out or whatever and blow up.”
The governor’s appearance later Saturday offered hope that help is on the way, both immediately and for the future.
The St. Mary Levee District had been working to locate and move a barge that to placed in Bayou Chene near Morgan City in what some consider to be the most effective back-flood control measure not just for Lower St. Martin but also for Terrebonne, St. Mary, Assumption and Iberville.
The state will pay the $7 million required to sink the barge, Edwards said, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will provide $2 million worth of riprap, the loose stone used to shore up breakwaters.
“At this point we don’t intend to let money get in the way,” Edwards said.
Facebook pictures posted by local officials over the weekend showed the barge being pushed into place.
The Corps decision to open the Morganza Spillway came Sunday, sooner than expected. It raised the stakes by putting more water in the Atchafalaya River and creating more back-flooding in the Stephensville area.
Edwards said the Corps would “slow open” the Morganza Spillway over a few days in early June.
Also Saturday, Edwards asked for federal help with flood-fighting efforts. The governor issued a disaster declaration Feb. 27 because of river flooding. The rest is up to President Donald J. Trump and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In another flood control move, the state Department of Transportation and Development has been installing a product called Barrier Force along both sides of La. 70 just north of Stephensville, where the highway has been closed by high water.
The barriers should be installed along both sides of the highway by Sunday afternoon, the governor said. His office had predicted the road would be open soon.
For the long term, Edwards pointed to this spring’s announcement that a proposed permanent flood control structure that would eliminate the need for a sunken barge in Bayou Chene has been fully funded. The project has been estimated at about $80 million. The sunken barge approach was employed in 1973, 2011 and 2016.
The governor also said work to raise La. 70 in the affected area is also being considered.
Edwards said the state has already spent $2 million on flood measures such as added Louisiana State Police and Wildlife & Fisheries patrols to keep roads and waterways safe.