Hanagriff: Voluntary evacuation issued south of Gulf Intracoastal

A voluntary evacuation in St. Mary Parish for areas south of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway was issued immediately following the National Weather Service’s 10 a.m. update on Hurricane Delta.
In issuing the voluntary evacuation, St. Mary Parish President David Hanagriff said it may be upgraded to a mandatory evacuation depending on Delta’s track later today once it enters the Gulf and could be expanded to include other areas.
“Even though it might shift a little more west, that’s not really good for us, either, because of the sharp turn this storm is going to take,” Hanagriff said. “This is not like Laura. Laura basically went straight north. Because of the low-level trough, they think it’s going to take a right.”
Wednesday morning, Hurricane Laura made landfall along the Yucatan Peninsula near Puerto Morelos, and will make its way into the Gulf of Mexico later in the day, the National Weather Service report-ed.
It’s expected landfall has shifted west more to eastern Cameron Parish where it is expected to make landfall in the daytime hours Friday, the weather service said.
In about a 24-hour period prior to landfall, the storm will make a pronounced right turn.
In anticipation of the storm, Legacy’s Nursing & Rehabilitation Centers in Franklin and Morgan City have announced they will begin evacuating residents Thursday, St. Mary Parish Office of Emergency Prepar-edness Director David Naquin said.
As for help evacuating residents, if that is needed, the news is not very positive.
Naquin said the con-tract that St. Mary Parish signed for evacuees to go to has been cut from 900 occupants from St. Mary and St. Martin to just 50. Also, hotels are not available to house evacuees because 6,800 residents affected from Hurricane Laura are still being house in them, Naquin said.
Instead, mega shelters will be set up, but the locations of those have not been determined. They could be from Dallas to Shreveport to Rapides or Ouachita parishes, Naquin said.
However, another is-sue is transportation, as Naquin said the state has 45 buses statewide and needs 600 to evacu-ate residents.
“We have some plans that we’re trying to make, but at the end of the day, we’re asking everybody to please, help your neighbor, take them with you, find a spot, make sure you have transportation, because it’s just not going to be as available as it has in the past,” he said.
With the storm’s pro-jections, high water will be an issue from the Wax Lake Outlet on west in St. Mary Parish, Hanagriff said.
“However, we’re going to have a wind situation — and potentially rain, depending on what the forecast models going to show as we get a little close — for the entire parish,” he said.
In preparation for ele-vated water levels, the St. Mary Levee District is closing a gap in what will be the Bayou Teche floodgate.
“The wall is in place,” Levee District Opera-tions Manager Mike Brocato Jr. said Wednesday morning. “We just don’t have the barge. It’s not ready, so our contractor’s out there right now working on setting up a structure to drop sheets across it to block it off. If they can finish that, which they’re telling me they can, that area inside the Teche will be protected.”
He said work also is being done in the Industrial Road and Metal Shark area to provide extra elevation, while work via an emergency contract for the east-west tie in south of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway near La. 317 in the Bayou Sale area is being undertaken right now.
“They’re in the process right now of hauling dirt,” Brocato said. “We’re going to try to build that levee to try to tie in to higher ground to an eight foot level. That’ll give us a little additional protection there.”
However, he said that the highest elevation protection is provided on the southern end of Bayou Sale is 8 feet.
“With current predic-tions, it’s more than likely going to top that,” Brocato said.
Flood gates in Morgan City and Berwick up to 12 feet in elevation are being closed as a precaution, while the Franklin, Yellow Bayou and Hanson canals will be closed.