Tropical Storm Lee parish wrap-up.

From left, Councilman Shelley Tastet, Parish President V.J. St. Pierre Jr. and Purchasing Officer Bobby Donaldson monitor water flow Sunday from the south at Sellers Canal and Hwy. 90 south of Ama.

Multiple parish government departments contributed to an all-hands-on deck approach to execute pre-storm debris analysis. Parish personnel rode all parish streets to identify trouble spots for Public Works and garbage contractor SDT to correct before they could become a drainage issue.

The Department of Parks and Recreation collaborated with Public Works to increase manpower in the field regarding drainage and debris handling, with field personnel going to A/B shifts early in the week to allow response to occur around the clock.

In addition, flood mitigation efforts and infrastructure improvements since the December 2009 rain event showed their worth. These included – but are not limited to – an additional pump at East Harding (New Sarpy), culvert gates at Prescott Canal (Montz), additional culverts in James Business Park (St. Rose), increased pumping capacity at Almedia / Walker (St. Rose), use of two pumps at Cross Bayou (Destrehan) and several automatic bar screen cleaner installations.

We are grateful to our residents, who heeded our warnings and appeared to have limited travel during dangerous conditions. We also received great assistance from the public in identifying streets with high water and other potentially dangerous situations. Without that help the parish could not have responded as effectively.

We continue to urge residents to be prepared for storm threats, as the 2011 season is just heating up.

PARISH STORM STATS

• 590 logged entries / actions taken in the Emergency Operations Center
• 37,590 total notifications made by EOC via Emergency Alert System (text, phone calls, e-mails)
• 31 streets reported high water
• 2 houses reported partial flooding (Norco)
• 5 houses experienced leaking roofs
• 3 trees damaged homes or cars
• 20 trees down across roads/power lines
• 200 power outages at the storm’s peak, most for less than two hours
• No outages by Sunday night
• 10.36" of rain at Hahnville courthouse since Sept. 1
• 14.33" of rain at Hahnville High School in Boutte since Sept. 1
• 11.86" of rain at St. Charles Borromeo in Destrehan since Sept. 1.
• 4 tornado warnings with no damage reported
• 61.6 million gallons of water pumped by the Wastewater Department at Hahnville, Destrehan and Luling Pond locations

The parish undertakes after action reviews after each emergency incident to review suggestions for improvements and additions to the parish's response planning.