Hazard preparations made for Tri-parish region
October 23, 2012Crime Blotter: Reported offenses in the Tri-parishes
October 23, 2012
A drainage improvement project that will prevent flooding in Raceland’s Twin Oaks Subdivision, Sugarland Shopping Center and the Raceland Cash Magic truck stop off La. Highway 1 is under way.
“This is a highly anticipated project for the people who live and own businesses in the area,” Lafourche Parish Government Public Works Director Kerry Babin said in a printed statement.
The first phase of the $1 million project – excavations along La. Highway 1 and the nearby service road and the fitting of equipment needed to install drainage pipes under the highway – is nearing completion, and the work, which is being done by LA Contracting Enterprise of Thibodaux, is expected to be complete some time in March.
“We want to caution people who drive and commute on Hwy. 1 to be particularly vigilant about the work that’s going on along roadways,” Babin added. “Heavy excavation equipment and construction workers will be working in close proximity of the roads. Drivers should remain alert when traveling through the construction site.”
The drainage improvement project plans, drawn up by Picciola & Associates of Cut Off, will reroute rainwater from the shopping center, the truck stop and the subdivision into Bayou Lafourche.
Twin Oaks resident Dawn Lirette, who has lived in her home on Fir Street in Twin Oaks Subdivision for more than six years, hopes the project will help prevent flooding in her neighborhood and around her home.
“The neighborhood has been fighting this problem since long before I moved here,” Lirette said. “It floods for everything. A little bit of rain makes for a lot of water in the neighborhood. Sometimes there is so much water that you need boots to get to the neighbor’s house because the ants are so bad. If we get a half hour of good rain, the yard and ditches flood, and you can’t wash clothes or flush toilets when the ditch is full.”
Lirette estimated that the neighborhood floods at least two to three times a month, depending on the amount of rainfall.
“All the water from the shopping center drains here,” Lirette said. “That’s what the problem is. They also wait a while to turn the pumps on, too, and those start draining the back of the neighborhood first.”
Even though her home has never flooded, Lirette is still holding on to her sandbags from Hurricane Isaac, just in case.
“Several other people have had water in their homes, though” Lirette said. “The lady across the street has had water in her house many times despite work she has had done to prevent it.
“She kept her sandbags after the hurricane, too.”
Raceland Cash Magic truck stop manager Pam Stuart echoed Lirette’s observation that runoff from the shopping center is the cause of flooding in the subdivision.
“We’ve never had any problems here, but I know the Twin Oaks neighborhood floods pretty bad,” Stuart said as she looked out past the business’s parking lot toward where crews from LA Contracting Enterprises were doing work.
Joseph Alexander of LA Contractors in Thibodaux concretes around drainage pipes in the $1-million Twin Oaks drainage improvement project near Raceland. Alexander is from Thibodaux.
