Officials work to prevent Stephensville flooding

As lower St. Martin Parish’s bayous sit full of water, parish leaders say many people have been working diligently to prevent flooding in the area.

Workers have been using pumps to get as much water as possible off the roadways in lower St. Martin Parish. Those pumps will stay on site so they can be used again, if needed, this spring, Parish President Chester Cedars said.

Despite pumping water to clear the roads, officials have had to close Four-Mile Bayou Road, Adell Street, Edna Street and Landry Lane to vehicle traffic, except for residents who live on those roads.

Officials expect to see a gradual decrease in the water levels along the Atchafalaya and Mississippi rivers during the next week or two.

The Atchafalaya River has been fluctuating between 8.1 feet and 8.3 feet at Morgan City during the past few days, said Roger Erickson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Lake Charles office. The Atchafalaya should stay above or near 8 feet through the end of this week and possibly into next week, Erickson said.

But south Louisiana hasn’t yet received the melted snow and ice from the north, which should bring more water south this spring. And authorities are hoping the region doesn’t get any major rain events during the next month that could add to the high water.

“We’ll be fighting this probably until June,” Cedars said.

Workers will perform maintenance on St. Martin Parish government automatic sandbagging and then begin stockpiling pre-filled bags to get ready for more high water in mid to late April, Cedars said.

“We were able to stay ahead of the game in Stephensville and Belle River since March 6, because we had … maybe (7,000) or 8,000 stockpiled bags of sand that we started accumulating way back in January in anticipation of what we might be seeing now,” Cedars said.

By the end of Monday, St. Martin Parish officials had distributed roughly 50,000 sand bags since March 6, Cedars said. St. Martin officials suspended the distribution of pre-filled sand bags Monday. Residents still in need of sand bags can get sand and bags at Stephensville Park on La. 70, but they must bring their own shovels and fill their own bags.

Cedars requests that all residents who have placed sand bags around their homes keep those bags in place with the likelihood of more high water arriving next month.