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Parish officials ready for up to 10 inches of rain

Rain chances diminish for festival weekend

Tropical Storm Harvey is expected to bring as much as 10 inches of rainfall to the Tri-City area during the next few days, but St. Mary Parish officials say the area should be able to handle that type of rain event.

Rain chances will start to diminish for the Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival that starts Thursday and continues through Labor Day weekend.

As of 7:30 a.m. Monday, Harvey was still a tropical storm but “quite lopsided with most of the weather far east of it,” said Meteorologist Donovan Landreneau of the National Weather Service’s Lake Charles office.

The Morgan City area could get 5 to 10 inches of rainfall through Labor Day weekend. Most of that rain will likely fall within the next two to three days, he said.

Duval Arthur, St. Mary Parish’s emergency preparedness director, said officials are preparing for up to the predicted 10 inches of rain during a four-day period. Arthur expected the bulk of that rainfall to occur Monday and Tuesday with 3 to 4 inches each day.

“We should be able to handle that without much problems,” Arthur said. “Our pumps are certainly adequate to take care of that.”

Arthur expects St. Mary Parish to get through the storms all right. Wind shouldn’t be an issue for St. Mary Parish, and storm surge should be minimal on the parish’s coastline.

The Tri-City area will have essentially 100 percent chance of rain through probably Wednesday, Landreneau said.

“We’re just going to have continuous rounds of showers and thunderstorms,” Landreneau said. “The system is expected to lift out Wednesday late afternoon and Thursday.”

However, rain chances will only slowly diminish Thursday, when the Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival kicks off in downtown Morgan City. Rain chances will drop to about 40 to 50 percent for Labor Day weekend.

“It should be quite a bit less coverage than now,” Landreneau said.

Louisiana’s coast could experience 20 mph to 30 mph winds from Harvey with higher gusts possible, Landreneau said.

The center of Harvey is expected to slowly make its way from the Texas coast into east Texas. Most of the bad weather is going to occur northeast of the center.

As a precautionary measure, sand is available for residents to fill their own sandbags under the parish barn on La. 182 under the water tower in Bayou Vista and under the U.S. 90 bridge in Amelia, Arthur said.

Sand and bags are available under the U.S. 90 bridge in downtown Berwick for residents to fill their own bags, Mayor Louis Ratcliff said. Sand is available under the U.S. 90 bridge on David Drive in Morgan City, Mayor Frank “Boo” Grizzaffi said.

Sand and bags are also available for Patterson residents at the fire station across the tracks on the corner of Veterans Boulevard and Progresso Road and at the Public Works Department located on Taft Street, Patterson Mayor Rodney Grogan said. Residents must bring their own shovels.

The southeast Texas region has gotten 15 to 20 inches of rainfall, with some areas getting as much as 25 inches. That rain event “almost looks very, eerily reminiscent of the Baton Rouge and Lafayette flooding” during August 2016, Landreneau said.

ST. MARY NOW

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