re: The Great Flood of 2016: Fill Out Disaster Forms NOW. Link Inside!

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tke857

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I actually rescued people from that neighborhood yesterday. There was very little chance of any of those houses taking water.

Not good for gonzales fellas. Just walked to my parents house. Everything that I grew up with is under water. Could not have imagined a scene like this.

What is the contact info for the cajun navy?

Just saw on Twitter that Catholic High is closed all week now

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Unfortunately he said 75% were a total loss, probably 90% had some damage.

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I was very lucky and in that 10%. I'll be helping everyone I know who had damage over the next several weeks.

From Nola, can I exit Gonzales onto hwy 30? Tia anyone

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What is the contact info for the cajun navy?

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This guy is the organizer of the Cajun Navy.

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I was looking at topo maps and if any of you do the same, something about Spanish Lake Swamp might surprise you. The entire area is 5 foot elevation. The BF/WC system is at least 15-20. IMO it would take an unheard of amount of water to flood the BF/WC system from backflow. I heard that they drained the swamp a long time ago - did they do it after the flood maps were drawn? If so, this swamp should be everyone's favorite body of water now, and those maps need to be redrawn. It has an immense capacity.



Super- First thanks for everything in this thread. Spanish lake basin was drained in 2009. I own some land that backs up to Bayou fountain west of CCLA. The front of my land where my home is at about 35 feet and it drops all the way down to 5 ft in the woods. My barn is at about 17 feet. Water did not get to it this time. The family I bought the property from built the barn in the 60's. They marked the high water mark of the 83 flood which would have been around the 20 foot mark, putting 3 feet of water in the barn. My current flood line sits at 15 feet, the line was moved back in 2012 according to the effective FIRM. The historical FIRM was where they marked. I have no doubt that if the Spanish lake basin was full, 4-6 feet of water would have been in my barn, it would have wiped out thousands of homes along BF...

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Thank you so much for the info, misterC.

So I thought I would do some post-analysis to show all of you how big this area is for protecting South Baton Rouge from flooding.


First, a regular map that you all know and love. This shows what the flood maps were concerned about - back flow from Amite to Manchac to Ward Creek and Bayou Fountain. You see the area of undeveloped land - that is the Spanish Lake Basin/Swamp.



Here is a topographic map of the same area. It becomes very clear that there is this large area of low lying land. We don't even need to see the numbers to tell that this is the primary area in which water will want to head. Notice all of the topo lines along Bayou Fountain and Ward Creek, and notice the lack of them in the swamp. The swamp is at absolutely low elevation. The dashed line shows where water actually likely flowed instead of up the creeks. The Bayou Manchac was flowing backwards for quite some time at height, and many people noticed it. Bayou Fountain and Ward Creek were flowing forward though. Lots of people wondered how that was possible. It's pretty clear how from looking at that map.




So this is an important area. Ward Creek is the top arrow heading to Baton Rouge, and the bottom arrow is Bayou Fountain but also Spanish Lake Swamp. It appears that the Spanish Lake Basin is right down from that split. This would explain rising waters around Santa Maria but not anywhere up Bayou Fountain. Notice the topography lines. Anywhere in the "direction" of Baton Rouge is 20-25 feet.



This is a cool view of Highland/Siegen and Bluebonnet/Burbank as well as the swamp and basin to the southeast. A lot of things are clear from this that suddenly make sense from the last couple nights. The elevation even near the soccer fields and the areas of town that started flooding off of Bayou Fountain (like Burbank/Bluebonnet) is around 15 feet. Lower than much of the rest of the Bayou Fountain area, but not lower than the swamp at the bottom right of the screen. Notice how Highland/Siegen is only 10 or so feet, it makes sense it would flood first (from a rising swamp). The area that flood maps said would flood is all 15-20 feet. Take note of the red box - that is a 10 foot topo line. Points east of it are less than 10 feet. It will take on water before anything else in the area.



Now the best part. The swamp. The basin is huge as you saw from the previous maps. This is an actual zoomed up area of one portion of the swamp - most of the swamp is just like this. Huge swaths of 5-10 foot land with some land that is pretty much at sea level. This basin can hold an immense amount of water and is likely where the Bayou Manchac was actually flowing into from the Amite the entire time.



So show your love to the Spanish Lake Basin and Swamp system!

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Just saw a report saying LP school system is closed indefinitely
15 schools under water
Most of their employees lost everything
Over half of their bus fleet destroyed.

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The impact of those schools being closed will force families to move to other areas of the state

As I've said before this backflow situation is very complex and dynamic. Too many variables to have been able to predict exact elevations and timing without having the benefit of a hydraulic and hydrologic model. The flow of water in the right direction is complex enough much less the flow in the wrong direction.

That said 21.5 was always going to be the max elevation of any water hydraulically connected to Manchac Point. It was close to that in Santa Maria but less than that further upstream like slackster said for a litany of reasons.