T’bonne council gets earful about flooding

Houma area residents pleaded with the Terrebonne Parish Council at its regular meeting last week to improve the parish’s drainage system to handle flooding from heavy rainstorms.

Nearly 200 homes were flooded on March 27 in northern Terrebonne from a storm that dropped 11 inches of rain in a short period.

The 60-year-old Broadmoor subdivision in Bayou Cane received extensive damage, but parts of the area have endured flooding in recent years.

Several Broadmoor residents told the council they were at the end of their rope, having to replace carpeting and furniture.

Lorie Moreau, a resident who lives on Funderburk Avenue, a main artery in the subdivision, said her home flooded twice in an eight-month period. Both times she had to tear out walls and replace cabinets.

“This was not a hurricane, but a rainstorm,” she said. “Do I fix it when I know it will happen again?”

Another resident said water stays too long in the streets and wondered why Broadmoor is particularly affected.

“Most of my furniture was ruined,” said Sherri Navarre. “I don’t know what to do next. This is not a young city. It should have been planned a long time ago. Who’s going to buy a house that floods?

One resident said she has lived in the subdivision for 38 years and was flooded for the first time. “Just make it a priority,” she told the council.

Councilman Billy Hebert, who represents Bayou Cane, said he had hoped cleaning ditches and deepening the St. Louis Canal would be effective.

“I hate to see people flood constantly,” he said. “It’s a helpless feeling. There’s nothing we can do, there’s water pouring in the house.”

Increased development in Bayou Cane has been a cause of the flooding, Hebert said.

The nearest pump station is two miles away. Councilman Alvin Tillman suggested an increased use of reservoirs to contain rainwater.

Jim Erny, a former levee district executive director in Terrebonne, said floodwater needs to be drained from Broadmoor into Lake Houmas, though Hebert said a parish Public Works official told him that draining water into the small lake was not allowed.

“This is not a new problem,” Erny said. “It’s 40, 50 years old and it’s getting worse.”

Nearby Bayou Gardens Boulevard was hit hard as well. Councilwoman Teri Cavalier, who represents the area along the thoroughfare, said residents had not seen heavy flooding such as happened on March 27 in many years.

Frank Robert, a Bayou Gardens resident, told the council he watched as rising floodwater destroyed 90 percent of his furniture.

“It was gut-wrenching,” he said. “You guys need to look down deep.”

Parish Public Works Director Greg Bush said water levels in the drainage system were lowered before the storm. However, the system is not pumped down to the same levels everywhere and only one inch of water can be removed over a 24-hour period. The system was still being drained when the rainstorm struck.

Preparations to dredge Bayou Terrebonne from Southland Mall to Coteau Road are nearing completion, according to Cavalier.

A Plantation Gardens resident said water from the Intracoastal Waterway backs up into the subdivision.

Homeowners in Sherwood Park subdivision and in Bayou Blue also complained of house flooding.

The bayou has been filling up during rainstorms for many years, Cavalier said.

Residents living near the C.C.C. Ditch in Gray who received flooding showed photographs of obstructions in the waterway. Cavalier said the ditch had been snagged and cleared using money the parish received following Hurricane Katrina.

Enlarging the ditch’s capacity is an ongoing project, according to parish engineer Jeanne Bray.

Council members Kevin Voisin and Arlanda Williams both said that litter clogging culverts and catch basins contributes heavily to the flooding.

Parish President Michel Claudet said demands from residents to place Public Works personnel at all of the parish’s 70 pump stations during rainstorms is not feasible because the department does not have sufficient staff.