flood recovery

For 17 years, residents in parts of East Baton Rouge, Ascension and Livingston parishes have been paying a local tax to help fund construction of the Comite River Diversion Canal, designed to lower the flood risk of nearby homeowners. Then in 2016, record flooding hit the region — causing billions in damage. The incident only ignited the demand for answers from frustrated taxpayers.

Around the country, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to buy back individual homes from people who have flooded repeatedly. But buying out a whole neighborhood is uncommon. Louisiana's 2016 flood seems to be changing that for two communities. In Pointe Coupee and Ascension Parishes, a buyout program first used in neighborhoods after Superstorm Sandy may offer a new option to homeowners who have lived with escalating risk for decades.

Traumatic experiences like major floods can have psychological ramifications. Since Hurricane Katrina, FEMA has sent money to Louisiana to provide counseling for survivors struggling with poor mental health every time a disaster hits the state.

A program called Louisiana Spirit has been providing that service to victims near Baton Rouge since the floods last August. But as the one-year anniversary approaches, the program is winding down — leaving some victims in the lurch.

Since rainfall blanketed southeast Louisiana in August 2016, residents have wondered how the state can protect its people from future floods. Answering that question begins with understanding the geography we live in.

Federal aid helped pay for hotels for thousands of Louisianans after last year's flood. Until May, the short-term program help people find shelter, especially low-income renters. Now a state-managed program is still filling in the gaps, trying to give more permanent homes to families washed out last year — including a single mother in Baton Rouge.

Since last August, the popularity of flood insurance has again surged in Louisiana, but the future of the debt-laden National Flood Insurance Program is uncertain. Since 2005, the program has racked up $24.6 billion in liability to the U.S. Treasury, mostly due to claims after Hurricane Katrina, Superstorm Sandy, and the Great Louisiana Flood of 2016. That’s just one way that Louisiana’s past is influencing the federal program’s future.

86 thousand homes in Louisiana had damage from flooding last year, and state recovery officials are working to distribute federal recovery dollars to flood victims. In order to find out who flooded and how badly, the state set up a survey; only 31 thousand households have filled it out.