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The Morgan City Council on Tuesday signed on to a parishwide plan that would keep the city government eligible for federal disaster assistance.
The council approved a resolution adopting the St. Mary Parish Hazard Mitigation Plan, which was completed in March.
According to the resolution, the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 emphasizes mitigation, or taking steps in advance to reduce the risk of damage from natural disasters, and requires the jurisdictions to adopt plans taking that into account in order to remain eligible for federal aid.
The key elements of the plan are risk assessment, cataloging the resources available to deal with disasters, mitigation strategy, and maintenance and procedures in the plan, according to a presentation by Edward Anthony of Quality Engineering Services. That firm is consulting with the parish on plan development.
Anthony identified the three largest causes of property damage in the parish: flooding, hurricanes and tropical storms, and hail, lightning and wind damage from thunderstorms.
Hurricanes account for 75% of property damage, he said.
Jurisdictions across the parish participated in the mitigation plan’s development by way of a hazard mitigation plan committee.
Local governments often rely on aid obtained through the Federal Emergency Management Agency for reimbursement of expenses both before and after a disaster.
The aid in advance covers expenses such as additional staffing. After a disaster, the aid can help local governments pay for damage to infrastructure components such as roads, bridges and water systems.
Click here to find St. Mary's draft hazard mitigation plan.

December 6, 1968 — July 25, 2021
Regina Marie Businelle Lasalle, 52, a resident of Franklin, passed away peacefully, Sunday, July 25, 2021 at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, surrounded by her family.
Regina was born December 6, 1968, in Morgan City, the daughter of Bobbie Ann Businelle Dupre and Walter Joseph Businelle Sr.
Regina was filled with such a strong, charismatic personality that it lit up any room she walked into. Though she could be feisty, she loved strongly and passionately for everyone around her. Regina enjoyed being in the outdoors, she loved to swim and sunbathe. She could go on for hours telling someone a story, never having a dull moment. Regina was a great conversationalist and her big personality helped her stories become brighter and more interesting than ever. She had a huge heart and loved her husband Doug, and her two fur-babies, Chico and Jazz, more than anything in the world.
She will be sadly missed and lovingly remembered by her husband, Douglas “Doug” Lasalle Sr.; mother, Bobbie Ann Businelle Dupre and significant other Arvin Alleman; step-mother, Connie Businelle; two sons, Tony “T.J.” Lejeune Jr. and Kevin Lejeune; six step-children, Savannah Reeves Hawkins, Madison Reeves, Justin Stratton, Cherie Lasalle Dupre, Douglas Lasalle Jr. and Eric Joseph Lasalle; nine grandchildren; three sisters, Sharon Mancuso and husband Pete, Hollie Dupre Smith and husband Jason, Tamara Businelle; brother, Tobias Businelle; like a sister, Dana Boudreaux; numerous nieces and nephews.
Regina was preceded in death by her father, Walter Joseph Businelle Sr.; step-father, Evans Joseph Dupre Sr.; two brothers, Walter Joseph Businelle Jr., Ward James Businelle; step-daughter, Erin Lasalle Drummond.
Funeral services will be held at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, July 29, 2021 at Twin City Funeral Home. Visitation will be held Thursday, July 29, 2021 from 2:00 p.m. until the time of services. Regina will be laid to rest at 2:00 p.m., Friday, July 30, 2021 at Prien Memorial Park Cemetery in Lake Charles.

Happy birthday Martha Dangerfield, from family, friends and Ira

Louisiana has spent $47 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funding, according to a leading pandemic fiscal watchdog.
The spending dwarfs the recently passed $38 billion state operating budget and doesn’t include roughly $10 billion in unspent allotted funds, mostly stemming from state and local aid programs.
The vast sum, however, is relatively modest with respect to the trillions of dollars in taxpayer-funded federal support that began last year – almost of all of which has been tracked by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
“With such large commitments, the public deserves to know how their dollars are being spent,” the group says on its follow-the-money website, “COVIDmoneytracker.org.”
The site includes every significant government action relating to the public health emergency, the group says. It also organizes financial data into spreadsheets, tables, graphs and interactive formats to show “how much has been disbursed (or paid back) and to whom.”
So far, Congress has passed $5.9 trillion in pandemic relief legislation, the Trump and Biden administrations have approved $900 million in administrative spending and the Federal Reserve has fulfilled about half of its pledged $6.5 trillion.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget performed the same fiscal watchdog role during the 2008-2010 financial crisis, which policy analyst Mike Farquharson said was significantly different than the current COVID-19 crisis.
“If you compare it to the Great Recession, spending is about twice as large as a percentage of GDP,” he said.
Farquharson added that the coronavirus recession was self-induced, caused millions more unemployed workers than the 2008-2010 recession and lasted only two months officially.
“It did help to boost personal income,” he said, referring to unemployment insurance benefits including the supplemental weekly federal payments on top of state benefits. As workers lost their jobs and businesses shuttered during strict stay-at-home orders last year, employment assistance was vital to millions of vulnerable families.
According to spending data, Louisiana has spent all $9 billion of allotted federal safety net aid, which includes both food and jobless income support.
Farquharson noted that initial CARES Act unemployment payments were so generous that “more than half of recipients (nationwide) were making more than 100% of former wages.”
Federal unemployment assistance will expire in Louisiana at the end of the month as part of a compromise agreement between Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards and the GOP-controlled state legislature.
Edwards was the first Democratic governor to agree to end the supplemental benefits early – they expire in September nationally – though he also brokered a modest increase in state unemployment assistance.
Farquharson further explained that while there are labor shortages in the form of unfilled jobs, it’s premature to conclude that government COVID-19 benefits are to blame, though “there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence.” He added, “It’s difficult to determine causal effects; it’s much harder than it might seem.”
Louisiana’s largest pandemic allotment came from the federal Loan and Grant Program, which included $15 billion in business aid, mostly through the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan Advance program.
Direct-payment stimulus checks have totaled $12 billion in Louisiana, while elementary and secondary schools have received $4 billion and Medicaid $1 billion.
Nationally, the money-tracker website lists $500 billion in “extraneous measures” or non-pandemic relief items sandwiched into congressional pandemic spending bills.
The nationwide allotments include $81 billion for pension bailouts, $56 billion for the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, $30 billion for unrelated federal agency appropriations and another $38 billion in selective spending.
“We were in support of the CARES Act [approved in March 2020] and some of the early bills because of the scale of the crisis,” Farquharson said. “As time went on, we’ve been more critical of some legislation, like the American Rescue Plan. It certainly could have been pared back.”