Hell and High Water: interesting article from 2013 on the 83 flood

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The flood on the Amite and Comite rivers would become the worst on record. In Livingston Parish, 3,025 homes and businesses would flood, as would 1,615 in Baton Rouge and 828 in Ascension. The 1983 flood remains part of the lore among families who suffered its effects and among others who saw water stop mercifully at their doorsteps. Heavy rain still sends some of those people to check projected flood stages out of fear of another flood.

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Conditions like those that produced the 1983 flood statistically can be expected about once every 75 years, but no one can predict when the next flood will occur, said Dietmar Rietschier, executive director of the Amite River Basin Commission.

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Eventually, damage would reach $23.4 million in Ascension Parish, $65.3 million in East Baton Rouge and $83.8 million in Livingston, the final report on the flood by the corps shows.

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Rick Foster, who oversees building permits in Denham Springs, said building standards put into place since 1983 won’t help older structures, but will protect new ones. “Our building standards have improved,” Foster said. “Our flood plain regulations have been strengthened.” Since 1984, buildings in Denham Springs have been constructed at or above base-flood elevation, which means they should be above a 100-year flood, Foster said.

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[b]The 1983 flood brought proposals to build two major flood-reduction projects: the Darlington Reservoir and the Comite River Diversion Canal. They were designed to work together, but the reservoir hit political snags and wasn’t funded, said Rietschier, who oversees the ongoing Comite project. That $198 million project to divert floodwater from the Comite River to the Mississippi River probably would pay for itself in one flood such as that of 1983, he said. That diversion is designed to reduce 100-year flood peaks by 0.8 foot at Port Vincent and 1.2 feet at Denham Springs on the Amite River. On the Comite River, it should reduce water levels 3.8 feet at Greenwell Springs, 4.9 feet at Hooper Road and 5.5 feet at White Bayou, Rietschier said. Because of funding problems, often at the federal level, the project has fallen behind schedule and isn’t expected to be completed until 2021. It will take longer than that if the federal funding doesn’t come through as expected, Rietschier said.

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