Parish Takes Storm Season Steps
BOBBY ARDOIN
St. Landry Now.com Editor
St. Landry Parish government is initiating several preventative measures to avoid potential flooding risks, parish president Jessie Bellard announced on Wednesday night.
Bellard told Parish Council members that the parish is also instituting a downloaded phone app system that enables individuals to capture photographs of road or property flooding and then upload the images to the parishwide Global Information System.
“Once someone has the app, they can send out the photos that will be picked up on the GIS system. Then we can look at them and decide whether we want to send someone out to check on the situation,” Bellard said during the regular monthly meeting.
Although the weather scheduled this weekend appears to be clearing following nearly four days of intermittent squalls activated by Tropical Storm Arthur, Bellard said during an interview that he is taking pro-active approaches at the onset of hurricane season.
Earlier this week Bellard said he sent out work crews to remove debris from bayous and tributaries in order to relieve the pressure from build-up next to bridges.
The out flow from Bayou Cocodrie was especially targeted, Bellard said, since the waterway flows down from Concordia, Rapides and Avoyelles parishes and into St. Landry.
Especially vulnerable to debris collections, Bellard said, are wooden bridges.
Bellard posted social media photos of him on Monday night, walking along bridges and using a flashlight to determine water levels and whether there are debris collections.
On Wednesday Bellard announced that he was ordering a no-wake zone for waterways and Bayou Courtableau, which was also closed due to high water levels.
Areas that experienced large amounts of water that have drawn concern from the parish, Bellard said, include the Krotz Springs area and the prairie located north of the town.
“We have had some flooding problems along Kim Drive in Krotz Springs and the water coming down through Cocodrie is causing some areas in the north part of the parish to be above flood stage,” Bellard said.
