La. governor tours two cities: one saved, one flooded
Most in swamped city had no insurance
LAKE ARTHUR, La. — Gov. John Bel Edwards flew across south Louisiana on Thursday, surveying flood damage from a helicopter and talking with people in a city where a heroic effort by volunteers and others held floodwaters back and one that flooded.
In Lake Arthur, residents told Edwards about a heroic effort by hundreds of volunteers and others that started during downpours Aug. 13 and kept the Mermentau River from inundating the southwest Louisiana city of 2,700.
People came from all around southwest Louisiana to help, Monica Chapman said.
“They had kids — highschool kids, they had young kids, they had old people, medium-age people. … In the rain and everything they were still here. It was the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.
At a subdivision in Youngsville, near Lafayette, every third or fourth house still had a pile of flood debris on the lawn, a sign that occupants were still gutting and clearing damage. At other houses, remnants showed where similar piles had been hauled away.
“You know I pay my taxes, I worked … I’ve never been late a day of my life,” said Kimberly Moore, who came up to the governor as he walked down the street. But now, she said, she cannot get the help she needs.
Edwards said afterward that, like thousands of people whose homes flooded this month across 20 parishes, people in Youngsville were in areas that had never flooded and didn’t have to buy flood insurance.
“The insurance was designed to make you whole after you’ve suffered damages,” he said, but help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot do that.
“Though we are bringing to bear all the FEMA relief we can and what’s allowed by statute, it’s not going to be enough to make people whole, and that’s unfortunate,” he said.
He said he will ask Congress for more money to help the recovery.
A proposal that might help flooded Louisiana homeowners is being drafted, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro said.
While visiting flood-destroyed public housing units for elderly and disabled people in Denham Springs, outside Baton Rouge, he was asked about allocations like those approved after Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.
“We are certainly ready, willing and able to support that if and when Congress decides to take that up,” he said. “I know HUD has already provided some technical assistance in the drafting of that kind of legislation, but I cannot make any commitment on that right now because that is Congress’s call.”