It wasn’t the strongest storm to have traveled through St. Charles Parish, but Hurricane Francine nonetheless packed a staggering punch for many residents.
Numerous parish residents have reported incidents of flooding – there were 181 instances confirmed by St. Charles Parish of homes with flooding in their living areas and 107 of homes with flooding in a garage, patio, carport, shed or other detached structure due to the storm.
The heavy rain from the storm outlasted estimates as Francine lingered over St. Charles Parish longer than models projected, bringing approximately 9 inches of rain to the parish.
Dana Hartman of Norco rode out the storm with her family. Before Francine was done, Hartman had seven inches of water in her home.
“I’d never experienced it before, water coming in the house like it did– maybe a little through the door, but not like it was,” Hartman said.
Hartman was in her room when her daughter let her know that the rising water was starting to get into their home.
“She told me, ‘you’ve got water coming out of your closet.’ ‘Oh, no I don’t.’ ‘Yes, you do,’” Hartman recalled. “Half the room was soaked. We got up and realized how high the water was outside.”
There’s never great timing for that kind of situation. Worse, though, was the fact that Hartman upgraded several parts of the house recently.
“I had it 90 percent done and Francine came through, flooded my garage and my house … I had my new floor tiles stacked in my garage and now those are floating,” Hartman said. “I guess we’re just waiting to see the next step.”
That next step could be a trailer – the family was still in their house as of Sunday evening.
“We don’t really have any other place to go. We’re waiting for FEMA to declare it a disaster to try and get a trailer, so we can live in that while we gut the house,” Hartman said.
The good news for Hartman was that the house never lost power – a bit of good luck, as the storm knocked out power of more than 400,000 state residents at its peak – and her children made the most of the night and had a bit of fun with it all.
“We caught a crawfish,” Hartman quipped. “My kids caught minnows in the house … all you can do is laugh. There’s nothing you can do about the situation. We just got the water out as soon as we could. It went down pretty quick.”
One thing she would like to do for the future, however, is raise the home from the level it currently stands. While she had never experienced flooding to this level before, major rain events have led to water getting under the door and into the home before.
“That’s the big issue. It really needs to be raised, because it’s going to continuously happen,” she said.
