Ida was nearly a category five hurricane when it made landfall in lower Lafourche Parish. The parish is largely in ruins with officials estimating it could take weeks to get power restored, and potentially longer than that for homes to be rebuilt.
Entergy Raceland Network Distribution Line Supervisor Dianna Lafont said they’ve only managed to survey 40 percent of their main feeders and already have discovered 1,200 downed polls mostly along LA 1 and 308. That’s not including lower portions of the parish.
“Y’all it’s bad out there, really bad out there. Our community has been devastated, our utility infrastructure has been devastated,” said Lafont. “This is going to take some time. It could be weeks before some people get power.”
For comparison, Lafont said Hurricane Zeta downed about 800 polls total.
Lafont said help is on the way but up until Wednesday only she and the ten workers who rode out the storm in their offices have been holding down the fort. Line crews have begun pouring into Lafourche, but they face harsh conditions and limited housing.
“We have nowhere for these people to sleep. The limited hotels that we have are destroyed, we are working on trying to get lodging for them.” said Lafont. “We have to feed them, we are having material issues because we are having to rebuilding our entire system down here, and we are having communications issues.”
But there was a message of hope, and some signs that the economic engine that propels much of Lafourche had escaped the worst case scenarios. Chett Chiasson with the Great Lafourche Port Commission says Port Fourchon's main channels are not obstructed, and a lot of their physical infrastructure is intact.
“Our fuel tanks are in place, our mud tanks are in place, there are facilities are in place, a little bit of cosmetic damage but they are still there, the structures are still good,” said Chiasson. “Not all of them, okay, not nearly all of them but the majority of them are still good and we can get things back up and running.”
Port Fourchon is the service base for Gulf of Mexico oil and gas rigs and is responsible for roughly half a billion dollars in US GDP, said Chiasson.
Officials urged residents not to give up hope, and not to give up on Lafourche.
“We are battling through it and we are going to get there, I promise you, we are going to get there, but it is going to take a bit of time,” said Lafont. “We have a lot of help coming, we have a lot of good people that are going to get us to where we need to be and y’all, we are going to get through this.”
Lafourche Parish Hurricane Ida Joint Press ConferencePosted by Lafourche Parish Government on Thursday, September 2, 2021
