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Plaquemines levee breaches still swamp roads
06:24 PM CDT on Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Katie Moore / Eyewitness News
Frustration mounts for residents and business owners of lower Plaquemines Parish after days of waiting in long convoy lines to access the lower end of Highway 23.
Parish workers constructed make-shift levees for miles along both sides of the highway to try and keep the water from flowing across the highway, where it’s several feet deep in spots.
A delay in clearing the road, parish leaders said, is a more than 200-foot levee breach near Point Celeste.
"I've seen a number of breaks and breaches just like this. I've worked them and filled them," said Plaquemines Parish Executive Director Bill Serpas on an airboat tour of the damage.
Contractors dumped one truckload at a time of dirt and chopped up slabs from government buildings and homes that were leveled during Hurricane Katrina into the levee gap. According to Serpas, only one side of the levee is accessible to trucks, so all work is happening from one side.
Officials estimated the levee breach to be at least 23 feet deep.
The Point Celeste breach is one of three from the recent hurricane storm surges that are allowing Gulf water to stream all the way across Highway 23.
Workers cut one hole in an inner citrus land levee to allow some of the water to drain, but officials said until the back breaches are closed, there’s nowhere to pump the highway water.
"Inside the levee it should be a cattle pasture," Serpas said.
This week, cattle in the pasture have huddled together on small patches of land that aren’t under the standing water.
Contractors for the parish were scheduled to work around the clock to keep dumping truckloads of material into the Point Celeste breach, and because of the depth of the hole, parish officials wouldn’t give an estimate on when they think the repairs will be complete.
In the meantime, Plaquemines Parish officials urge residents to use the Point a la Hache ferry to access the lower end of the parish, instead of waiting in convoy lines, that at times, run 45 minutes to an hour.
