Official Project Name
St. Charles Parish Urban Flood Control Feasibility Study, St. Charles Parish, Louisiana

Location
St. Charles Parish, Louisiana

Purpose
Flood Damage Reduction

Status

The Feasibility Cost Share Agreement was executed on March 30, 2005. Data collection has begun.

Benefit to the Community & Project Features

St. Charles Parish suffered severe rainfall flooding in Novmenber 1989, May 1995, and September 1998. Insurance payments resulting from the May 1995 flood totaled over $57,000,000 representing almost 2,000 claims. Total damage payments since 1978 were $72,000,000, with over 3,000 claims. There are 455 structures classified as repetitive loss, meaning that three or more claims have been paid on those strutures within 10 years. The Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project, currently under construction, is intended to reduce flooding associated with storm surges, but does not address problems associated with rainfall flooding.

Authority

Resolution adopted by the Committee on Transportion and Infastructure of the U.S. House of Representatives on April 22, 1999.

Scope

The feasibility study will investigate methods of reducing flood damages across the east bank of St. Charles Parish. A detailed hydraulic analysis of the area bound by the Mississippi River Levee, the hurricane protection levee, the lower spillway guide levee, and the St. Charles/Jefferson Parish line will be developed. The study will evaluate in detail adding pump stations in the hurricane protection levee, improving drainage through Airline Highway, additional pumping capacity and canal improvements in Ormond, New Sarpy, and Norco.