Shrimp & Petro fest gets wet as St. Mary emerges from Lee

Tropical Storm Lee put a damper on some events at the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival in Morgan City this weekend, but available reports contend that except for minor flooding and temporary power outages residents of St. Mary Parish emerged from the first significant weather event in three years with no serious complaints.

Between Friday and 8 a.m. on Monday, a reported 10 inches of rain had fallen on St. Mary Parish. The Office of Emergency Preparedness listed the Atchafalaya River as having crested at 7 feet in Morgan City. Officials said there was no need to close floodgates and no major damage had been reported by Monday morning.

Cleco Corp. reported on Monday that of its 20,000 customers in southeastern Louisiana who experienced power outages 1,600 St. Mary Parish residents and businesses were reported to have been involved when outages were experienced in Patterson on Saturday. Extra crews were dispatched and repairs were made by Sunday.

Entergy reported having only five customers without power in St. Mary Parish during the weekend.

“We were able to make repairs to outages on Saturday and Sunday morning, but later in the day it became unsafe [due to torrential rain] for us to work,” Cleco Vice President of Customer Services Anthony Bunting said.