West St. Mary hurricane preparations

Franklin Mayor Eugene Foulcard advised Thursday that in preparation for the potential impact of Tropical Storm Cristobal, a self-fill sandbag location will be available to the residents of the city of Franklin beginning June 5 at Caffery Park on Barrow Street at 10 a.m. Residents are asked to bring their own shovels, and sand and bags will be provided.
Also released on Thursday, was a message from Foulcard regarding canal closures.
According to Foulcard, due to the potential impact of Tropical Storm Cristobal and its threat of potential storm surge, the Franklin Canal Flood Gate will be closed June 5 at 10 a.m. At that time the Franklin Canal will be pumped down to handle any significant rainfall this storm may produce. All pumps are automated but will be manned and monitored throughout the storms duration by City of Franklin personnel.
In preparation for Tropical Storm Cristobal, Baldwin Mayor Abel “Phil” Prejean released a notice Thursday that the town of Baldwin has sand and bags available for residents.
The limit will be 10 bags per household and residents will need to fill their own.
They were asked to bring their own shovels, and were notified that the sand is located in the warehouse behind the old fire station in the public works facility.
Any further information can be obtained by calling Baldwin Town Hall at: 337-923-7523.
Interested parties are required to be a resident of the town of Baldwin.
The St. Mary Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness advised parish citizens Thursday about sandbag filling locations throughout the parish in preparing for then Tropical Storm Cristobal.
According to OHSEP, parish residents are directed to bring their own shovels to self-fill at all of the following locations:
—Public Works Hanson Barn, 10905-A Hwy. 182 E, Garden City
—Public Works, 2717 Hwy. 182 E (under the water tower), Bayou Vista
—District 11 Four Corners Fire Station, and District 11 Glencoe Substation.
Roger Erickson, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service advised via OHSEP that it is important to not focus on any particular model run when assessing the long-range potential for tropical systems (especially ones that have not yet developed), since potential solutions can show large variability from one run to the next, and confidence in any given scenario is very low at long time ranges.
If a system were to develop, it is too early to speculate on any potential track, intensity or impacts.
All areas in and around the Gulf of Mexico should be monitoring for possible tropical development as we begin hurricane season.
According to the Lake Charles Weather Forecast Office, the areas of the parish at the highest risk of a worst-case scenario of a category one hurricane storm surge are Pecan Island, Intracoastal City, Delcambre, Cypremort Point, Franklin and Burns Point.
However, as of today, Cristobal is a disor-ganized tropical depres-sion, and will remain over land for much of the day. It is expected to re-emerge over the Gulf of Mexico later today or early tomorrow and strengthen back to a tropical storm as it moves north tomorrow and Sunday.
LSWFO said that flooding is their top con-cern- from both storm surge and rainfall in parts of south central Louisiana Sunday and Monday.
They said they are ex-pecting four to six inches of rain, with locally higher amounts, and that tides are already running a foot above normal, and will rise further late this weekend.
They further advised that winds will be tropi-cal storm force in parts of south central Louisi-ana, and to expect scat-tered power outages Sunday and Monday.