There were 181 confirmed homes with flooding in their living areas and 107 homes with flooding in a garage, patio, carport, shed or other detached structure after Hurricane Francine brought about 9 inches of rain to the parish last week, according to St. Charles Parish spokesperson Francesca Blanchard.
Improvements at Destrehan No. 2 Pump Station, which were made after Hurricane Ida, allowed water to flow easier to the station to get pumped out faster. Corrections to the Dunleith Canal Hydraulic Bottleneck and the nearly complete Des Allemands Bulkhead project, which adds two feet of additional storm surge protection, also helped to lessen the impacts of the storm, Blanchard said.
“We still have several projects to fortify our infrastructure on the horizon,” Blanchard said. “But had we not completed the improvements that we did since Ida, there’s no telling how many homes would have flooded in Hurricane Francine.”
Water ponded quickly during Hurricane Francine because of the large amount of rain that hit after a rainy weekend when the ground was already saturated, Blanchard said.
“None of the forecasts expected Francine to stall out over St. Charles Parish,” Blanchard said. “So, we did well considering this outcome was not predicted in any of the models.”
She said the parish’s pumps can handle an inch of rain for the first hour of rainfall and a half inch of rain every hour after that.
“This storm developed rapidly and did not follow predicted tracks,” Blanchard said. “This should serve as a reminder to residents that they should stay ready, so they don’t have to get ready at the last minute.”
