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Barry kept its grip on St. Mary Sunday afternoon, a full day after making landfall near Intracoastal City. The storm, now a tropical depression, sent rain bands that triggered a flash flood warning here until 8:45 p.m.

Just before 4 p.m. the National Weather Service said up to 6 inches of rain had fallen in the previous few hours.

Franklin and Baldwin were especially hard hit, the National Weather Service said.

People across the area made use of an early afternoon pause in the wind and rain to begin clearing downed limbs and other debris.

But thousands of St. Mary residents remained without power Sunday night.

In Morgan City, power has been restored to about 50 percent of customers by Sunday night, Mayor Frank "Boo" Grizzaffi said.

"It was going well for a little while," Grizzaffi said about 7:30 p.m. "Now it's not going well."

Efforts to restore power in Elliott Subdivision, the area behind Morgan City Junior High between Sixth and Maple Streets, hit an unexpected snag. That same is true for the La. 70 feeder that serves the business corridor there.

Both those areas will remain without power Sunday night and, Grizzaffi said, should have power sometime Monday.

Monday's list of areas to work on includes Cypress Gardens, Marquis Manor and the area south of the railroad tracks.

"It's frustrating and people are mad, but our people have been doing a hell of a job," Grizzaffi said.

The city has employed contractors to help with restoration, but the bulk of the work is being done by city crews, the mayor said.

Cleco has restored power to about 4,000 of its St. Mary customers by Sunday, according to figures from poweroutages.us. But 12,403 remained without power at 8 p.m.

Patterson's city government posted a notice on its Facebook page about problems encountered by Cleco contractors: "Multiple problems w/circuits and feeders!"

Donald Young, who lives on La. 182 just west of the Patterson city limits, said he felt lucky.

"I've had [power] the whole time," Young said as he took a break from pulling down the plywood he'd nailed up to protect his front door. A pair of helpers was clearing debris from his yard.

His home experienced a few hours of outage, but power was quickly restored.

Young had much better luck with Barry than with Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Andrew all but destroyed his home.

And, lucky or not, he's done with sitting out hurricanes.

Next time, he said, "I'm sure I will be leaving."

Up the road in Patterson, a group that included Jon Campbell, Kirstine Campbell, Kurt Campbell and Annmarie Campbell was collecting downed limbs and
loading them in a trailer. They got help from a handy neighbor: Gerry Dumont, whose job is getting rid of stumps.

Like Young, the Campbells lost power for a few hours but felt fortunate to have electricity through most of the stormy weekend.

Eric Leleux's home in Berwick wasn't as lucky. He and his family and a neighbor were around the front porch Sunday afternoon before the rain hit. They'd been without power throughout the weekend.

Isolated reports of trees falling on mobile homes around the parish put a damper on the feeling of good fortune. But there have been no reports of injuries in St. Mary.

Officials called for voluntary evacuations of areas south of the Intracoastal Waterway and in lower St. Martin. They invoked curfews Saturday night.

One area was the target of a mandatory evacuation: La. 317 between the Intracoastal and Burns Point. An overtopped levee created a flood hazard.

The wind and rain gauges at Harry P. Williams Memorial Airport, which provide data for the National Weather Service, were an early Barry casualty Friday morning. But there were reports of 70 mph winds in St. Mary during the storm's peak impact Friday night and Saturday.

"This was supposed to be a rain event," Grizzaffi said. "And it ended up being a wind event."

Barry isn't done with St. Mary Parish yet.

A flash flood warning is in effect until 8:45 p.m. The St. Mary Paris Sheriff's Office is reporting isolated street flooding in Bayou Vista and encouraging people to keep storm drains clear.

Stephensville is included in the warning area.

Doppler radar indicated heavy rain across the warned area, the National Weather Service said. Two to 6 inches of rain have fallen over the past
few hours . Flash flooding is already occurring, especially in the Franklin and Baldwin areas. This is slowly moving east or nearly stationary.

Additional rainfall amounts of three to six inches are possible in the warned area.

A Flash Flood Warning means that flooding is imminent or occurring.
If you are in the warned area move to higher ground immediately.
Residents living along streams and creeks should take immediate
precautions to protect life and property.

Chairman Gabriel Beadle informed members of the St. Mary Parish Council of a land acquisition by a fire district Wednesday at the council’s regular meeting.
“Fire Protection District No. 3, that’s the Amelia fire district, purchased some property,” Beadle said, alerted by citizens. “This property was purchased in 2014 for $470,175. There was no appraisal that was done on the property before the purchase. That was something that seemed…uneasy with various members of the council as well as our legal advisor.”
Beadle said an appraisal was ordered, based on 2014 value, and it was returned at $131,900.
“For a property that was paid for at $470,000,” Beadle said.
Even present day, the property would appraise at $179,000, he said, citing the need for consolidation of boards and commissions, sometimes with resistance. “We have two boards who have passed resolutions that they don’t want to be part of our consolidation orders,” Beadle said.
The matter has been reported to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office, the chairman said. “This council has started hearing different things, and we have changed all the members on that board. None of them were members of the board at the purchase of this property. This is poor management of public funding, and if that’s the case, we might as well just throw money away, or just put it in the pockets of people we just like.”
Parish President David Hanagriff said the purpose of the purchase was for a fire training facility.
Legal counsel Eric Duplantis verified that the incident has been forwarded to the legislative auditor.
The funding came from general funds of the district, generated by taxpayers. The millage rate is 10 mills in that district, Chief Administrative Officer Henry “Bo” LaGrange said.
“We’re plugging in 10 mills in a community like that and it’s being wasted, while we’re struggling at the other end of the parish,” Councilman Craig Mathews said.
In other business:
—LaGrange reported that Burlington Northern Railroad intends to close three railroad crossings in Baldwin. An open-house meeting on those closings will be held July 24 from 5-7 p.m. at the Baldwin Community Center. The crossings are at Lockley, Orphan’s Home Road and Havens streets.
—Ordinances were introduced amending the speed limit on Irish Bend Road from the Sterling Bridge Road to Blackburn Curve to 30 mph; changing the council meeting dates and times to the first and third Thursdays of the month at 6 p.m.
—An ordinance was approved for a lease purchase agreement for a phone system at the courthouse.

Workers in Morgan City were ready at 6 p.m. to begin the job of restoring electricity, Mayor Frank "Boo" Grizzaffi said Saturday night.

The darkness won't stop them, but the weather is. In the meantime, all Morgan City electric customers are without power.

"We've evaluated the issues," Grizzaffi said. "But we can't get out there with bucket trucks when these little bands are coming through with 30 mph winds."

Morgan City has contractors from other utilities standing by to help restore power.

Power outages began Friday night and continued until the majority of the system was down when Lakeside Subdivision lost power Saturday. That's when the city decided to shut down the whole system to protect it.

"Toward the end we had a fragile system, and we were turning it on and it would flicker off," Grizzaffi said.

Elsewhere, one Morgan City mobile home near Lakeside Park was turned over by the wind.

The city has also experienced problems with the sewage system. Grizzaffi said getting electricity will solve some of those problems.

"Right now, our No. 1 priority is to restore power," Grizzaffi said.

Cleco reported 17,000 St. Mary customers without power at 1 p.m. Another 500 are without power in St. Martin.

“Cleco crews are assessing damage and restoring power to impacted areas,” said James Lass, general manager of distribution operations and emergency management, in a news release. “Our crews will continue to work as long as weather conditions are safe.”

When restoring power, once conditions are safe, Cleco crews patrol the lines and assess the damage by both ground and air, the company said. First, power is restored to critical community services such as hospitals, nursing homes and police and fire departments. Next, power is restored to the greatest number of customers in the shortest amount of time. Cleco then continues to safely work to restore power to all customers who can take power.