Parish is in recovery mode from flooding

St. Landry Parish is in the recovery phase from flooding that started on Aug. 12.
Parish President Bill Fontenot said, “Recovery can be just as complicated and chaotic as the event itself at times.”
Fontenot and Lisa Vidrine, parish emergency operation executive director, recap the flood situation at the St. Landry Parish Council’s Public Works Committee meeting Wednesday in Opelousas.
“What I saw you, probably witnessed, was neighbors helping neighbors,” Fontenot said.
“It was very much of a team effort and it is still ongoing, but I think we are own our way to recovery,” Fontenot said. “It is a very sad thing, some of the things we have seen. People having to just demolish their homes because their homes were filled with water.”
Vidrine said the response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency has the fastest in her 14 years on the job.
“We had great response from our federal and state partners,” she said.
An Aug. 19 report stated there were 74,070 people out of a total population of 83,384 affected by flooding. Out of 37,527 houses, 31,208 were affected by the flooding.
The population affected outside of flood zones was 59,160 and there 24,585 houses affected outside flood zones.
The flooding affected 1,504 businesses out of a total of 1,666. Of those businesses, 1,249 were outside flood zones.
As of Wednesday, FEMA reported its Individual and Household Program in St. Landry Parish had approved $3,685,832, which included $2,881,788 for households and $804,044 for individuals.