Golden Meadow - The one-two punch of Gustav and Ike was a real wake-up call in a lot of ways. For example, their tracks remind us that the angle at which a storm heads for the coast is critical. Just look at the devastation Ike’s storm surge left behind in lower Lafourche and Terrebonne.
Since then, Lafourche Parish has made big strides in levee protection, but Terrebonne has a long way to go.
Gustav floated Anderson Lee’s Golden Meadow home fifty feet from its foundation, and in early September. Ike flooded it again. After the storm, Lee said, as soon as he could, he would rebuild.
Lee’s roots run deep, even though the house that used to belong to his grandfather is now little more than a pile of lumber.
Lee lives about 200 feet outside of the South Lafourche Levee District’s ever growing levee system. It is a circular levee about 48 mile long.
As head of Lafourche Parish’s two levee districts, it is Wendell Curole’s Job to protect residents from flooding. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has spent $114 million in the last three years in South Lafourche. The Corps is currently spending $29 million for floodwall improvements in Golden Meadow. But when it comes to raising the levee another three feet, Curole says the parish is going it alone with the help of a ten mill tax assessment and a recently passed penny sales tax to raise their levees.
He says they will add ten more miles before next year.
For the most part the Lafourche system works, even though some of the construction is being done without the approval of the Corps of Engineers.
The Corps says much of the work may not be up to standards and as they wait for plans to be submitted, South Lafourche is moving forward. They say the safety of their residents is at stake.
Curole says any levee is better than none and the initiative shown by Lafourche residents is paying off.
For Lafrouche residents who live north of the Golden Meadow gate, the levee is a blessing. But outside, it is a curse.
Anderson Lee’s home now floods like never before thanks to the triple threat of subsidence, coastal erosion, and vanishing barrier islands.
While Lafourche makes strides, Terrebonne has a much longer way to go. Many blame subsidence for flooding that struck St. Lucy's church near downtown Houma again last month.
Part of the problem, they say, is a canal that was covered in the fifties no longer drains properly.
Terrebonne residents are also moving forward even though the massive Morganza to the Gulf levee project has not been authorized.
They now tax themselves to the tune of nearly $9 million a year, and with the help of ninety million dollars from the state, Curole has started work on floodgates and a ten foot high levee system.
As for the flooding at St. Lucy's, new pump stations are on the way. But will it be enough? No one knows for sure, so evacuation in a big storm is still the best advice.
While coastal restoration may be the ultimate solution, that work is moving slowly. Until then, the levees keep getting higher, and for areas outside those levees, the risks go up too.
