Lafourche spent over $3M fighting hurricanes

The Lafourche Parish Govern-ment revealed at Monday’s parish council meeting that it has spent a little over $3 million on emergency expenditures responding to the back-to-back storms.

The parish spent $472,100 on fuel and sand for its six government offices and $16,000 for the rental of the Thibodaux generator.

On Sept. 12, in anticipation of Hurricane Ike, the parish spent $339,459 on emergency items for the Emergency Operation Center, $185,287 on emergency employee salaries and $1.8 million on the debris cleanup program.

Parish President Charlotte Randolph said the parish has to pay only a portion of the debris cleanup program. The total project cost $6.7 million.

As a result of damages from the storms, the parish relocated three district judges to the old District Attorney’s office at a rental cost of $5,500 a month.

The council chambers and many of the parish government departments were also moved to the old Wal-Mart in Mathews. The parish has a lease license agreement with Wal-Mart Realty that is only good until tomorrow.

At that time, the old Wal-Mart will be sold to another company and Randolph said the asking renting fee is $20,000 a month. This does not include utilities, she added.

The parish is looking to place a sheet piling at a site where a levee breached Monday near southern Lockport. Randolph said the piling will cost an estimated $180,000. Renting the equipment that will be used to drive the piling into the ground will cost $753 per hour.

Randolph told the parish council that there will be more expenditures before the parish is back to its normal spending habits.

“Those are all the expenditures that we have in place right now,” she said. “I wanted to bring them to you because I did not want you to have any questions about anything. I wanted you to have the information in front of you.”

The additional expenditures will include rewiring of the old Wal-Mart building to accommodate the parish’s computer and phone system.

“This is a movable system. Whatever we decide to do with the Barrios Building, we can take the wiring with us as well as the telephone and other equipment,” Randolph said. “This is not considered an improvement to the building, so the money spent will not go to the soon-to-be owners.”

Following the financial report, Councilman Lindel Toups asked about debris collection.

Toups questioned whether Lafourche Parish residents could haul the debris to the proper landfills personally.

Randolph said the parish’s debris contract only allows debris to be delivered by the parish’s contractor. The parish contract requires that Lafourche hires people who monitor the hazardous materials that are mixed with storm debris.

Randolph said state contractors are under the same guidelines.

The parish has a burn ban in effect, however, contractors have DEQ permits that allow them to burn the materials at the landfills.

Councilman Jerry Jones inquired about repairs to parish property that was destroyed in the storm. Besides the Barrios Building, the parish has publicly reported damages to the South Lafourche Library, the Bayou Blue Library and the Marydale Daycare Center in Thibodaux.

According to Randolph, the law states that all of the repairs will have to go through the bidding process before the work is done.

“I told everyone to try and cover up as much as the roof damages with tarps until the work is bidded out,” she said. “We are looking at each of these building to make sure that we are following the guidelines.”

The final task of the meeting was to address the flooding problems due to rainfall from Hurricane Ike. As of Monday, there were four separate areas in the parish – Lockport, Des Allemand, Gheens and Bayou Blue – that were on the verge of flooding.

“At one point there were five parish employees in those areas filling sandbags along with the National Guardsmen,” Randolph said. “Councilman Toups and some members of the Gheens community spent all day sandbagging that area.”

The bigger concern near the Intracoastal Canal was marine traffic.

The parish government coordinated with the U.S. Coast Guard to stop the flow of traffic on Sunday because as vessel passed near homes it would send surges of water inland flooding the area.

“We are feeling a lot better about the flooding in the area and hopes that it will be done soon,” Randolph said.