re: 1,800+ East Baton Rouge Parish homes may need to be raised because of 2016 floods

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The houses in the curve of Burbank at Highland haven't flooded yet but it looks like the ditch in front of the subdivision is about to overflow the banks and encroach towards the homes.

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That’s going to happen anywhere there is that much rain like Baton Rouge has has to deal with recently. It doesn’t mean that subdivision wasn’t built to a required election, but it does appear it’s in a flood zone A, which means a minimum of 1 foot above BFE. I’m sure they are at least that high.

What concerns me is that these insane storms that drop well over a foot off rain over a few days seem to be common enough in Louisiana that I seriously think some “no go” zones need to be established to prevent people from building in low lying areas where there aren’t a lot of controls over development (Livingston in particular) until the local governments come up with a plan on how to handle that. More density and more houses in areas flood zone X, fewer homes and larger lots in A, with strict elevation requirements.

There must have been 1,000+ homes developed south of I-12 in Livingston by low/mid priced production builders. I really hope they aren’t setting those residents up for a disaster. I know Livingston has done next to nothing to address their transportation and drainage issues locally. And the state does nothing quickly, if at all, for Baton Rouge metro issues within their purview.

Same story for Preserve at Harveston along Bluebonnet. It’s not necessarily in the floodway, but it appears to be in Zone A and likely had to be elevated before they started pouring concrete. It looks like they did, and I know they have not flooded. It doesn’t seem like it, but EBR does watch that lately. It’s too bad they didn’t 20-30 years ago when they were developing Gardere or all of those homes right up against the Amite.

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Iberville Parish installing those aquadams could flood all of those homes by not allowing Bayou Fountain/Bayou Manchac to flow into Spanish Lake.

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They had to get a judge to stop them last time, but IMO the state needs to intervene and ensure that this doesn’t happen again. Spanish Lake is a natural reservoir for these kinds of floods. People should not be building along Manchac or Allegator Bayou road through the swamp at all unless they want a home on stilts. And we definitely should not flood thousands to save a few slack jawed morons that knew the risks and built at grade anyway.

I’m okay with blowing up the road to help that area drain quickly after the floods. But not if they install a dam and disrupt the natural watershed, flooding thousands of people in surrounding parishes in the process.