Gail’s Bait Shop is on the wrong side of the road. The Leeville Seafood Restaurant was swept backward. Courtesy of Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office Lt. Breenen Matherne
Hurricane Zeta made landfall near Cocodrie, in Terrebonne Parish Wednesday afternoon. According to Lieutenant Brennan Matherne with the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s office, the southern end of the parish took a big hit.
“A lot of the damage is tree damage, downed power lines, power poles, and certainly damage to individual structures,” said Matherne.
Numerous trees are down and there’s property damage in Golden Meadow and Leeville. Zeta was a fast-moving storm and Matherne says the speed of the storm helped minimize the damage.
“We knew there were a lot of silver-linings with this storm with the forward speed of it and I think by in large that’s what saved us from even more catastrophic damage in our parish is because it came through so quickly,” says Matherne.
Zeta had north-northwestern speeds in the lower 20s when it made landfall.
The only levee failures from Hurricane Zeta occurred on Grand Isle as the Category Two storm caused three breaches in what is known as the burrito levee, a large roll of plastic filled with sand. Jefferson Parish Emergency Preparedness Director Joseph Valiente says the breaches have led to flooding in the coastal town.
“And thank God we had shored them up over the last two prior hurricanes, but that’s going to have to be addressed. It was just too much wind, too much storm surge down there,” said Valiente.
Governor John Bel Edwards as a whole flooding was not much of an issue with Zeta but there was significant storm surge on Grand Isle and pumps are in place trying to drain the water.
“The burrito levee on the gulf side had three breaches,” said Edwards.
Hurricane Zeta was still a Category One storm when the center of the storm reached St. Tammany Parish. Parish President Mike Cooper says that even though the storm had weakened by the time it got there, St. Tammany still felt some significant winds.
“We had the northern eyewall of the hurricane and the winds were in the Cat One category, not sustained but gusts, which put trees down,” says Cooper.
Cooper says another problem for St. Tammany is power outages, which is causing unsafe driving conditions for citizens in the area.
“There have been numerous accidents on our highways due to nonfunctioning traffic signals because of power outages,” said Cooper.
Zeta set a few records when it reached the Bayou State Wednesday: the fifth storm to strike the same state in the same season and the second latest landfall. The latest hurricane to make landfall in the year was Juan on October 31, 1985.
Comments