East St. Mary got drenched again, but clear weather is in store

Staff Report
The Tri-City area got socked with another big rain event Friday. This week offers the hope of sunshine.
Isolated reports of street flooding followed Friday’s downpour. The gauge at the Harry P. Williams Memorial Airport in Patterson recorded 4.17 inches of rain between 8:56 a.m. and 12:56 p.m., including 2.20 inches between 11 a.m. and noon.
That came a day after Thursday’s deluge across south Louisiana. The Tri-City area missed the heaviest rainfall, but severe flash flooding and at least one drowning death were reported across the region.
Also Thursday, nine tornado sightings were reported between East Baton Rouge and St. James, and The Advocate reported as many more tornadoes in the Acadiana region.
East St. Mary was under a tornado warning Thursday after a storm capable of producing tornadic winds was spotted near Burns Point.
Friday’s heavy rain continued to make life difficult for people who have been coping with street and home flooding since March. The big rain event locally was April 4, when estimates of rainfall across east St. Mary ranged from 6 to 8 inches, most of it in the few hours around lunchtime.
The National Weather Service forecast for this week has a slight chance of rain Monday, clearing by Monday night. The rest of the week should be mostly sunny with highs in the upper 80s.
Weather elsewhere has also been a headache for this region this spring. Record levels in the Mississippi River led the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to announce the opening of the Morganza Spillway, which would divert water from the big river into the Atchafalaya. But the opening of the spillway has been postponed as the situation upriver changed.
Anticipating the original decision to open Morganza, state and local officials decided to install a flood control barge to alleviate backwater flooding in Bayou Chene. That flooding had been especially hard on Stephensville in Lower St. Martin Parish. That work was completed despite changes in planning for the Morganza opening. Officials have reported a measurable difference in water levels since the barge was installed.
At 7 a.m. Monday, the Atchafalaya at Morgan City was at 8.1 feet, or 2.1 feet above flood stage. The level has been dropping slowly since Saturday.