Repair and recovery efforts are now well underway after Hurricane Francine left behind of swath of flooding, power outages and property damage in its wake. Francine made landfall Wednesday night as a category 2 storm. The highest rainfall totals across the region totaled 8-to-10 inches, according to the National Weather Service. Most of that rain fell in Lafourche, St. John, St. Charles and Jefferson Parishes.
Megan Williams is a meteorologist at the National Weather service, who described Francine’s changing path. “It generally tracked northeastward over Houma and then kind of wanted to approach the lake. It drives a little bit to the east and that kind of allowed it to train a little bit longer, with some of the heaviest rainfall over the south shore areas."
Governor Jeff Landry activated up to 2,500 Louisiana Army National Guard (LANG) members to help in the aftermath of the storm. Col. Jennifer Mumme announced, “The Louisiana National Guard is trained, we’re prepared, we’re equipped and we’re ready to help the citizens of this great state.” Col. Mumme says the number of Guards members activated could increase depending on the need.
Francine made landfall in Terrebonne Parish near Morgan City, Louisiana at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, with winds reaching 100-mile per hour. Mayor Lee Dragna says Francine left behind a lot of damage and led to large power outage. “We’re completely out of electricity. We’re drawing zero electricity from the grid so we don’t know exactly what it is. We’ve got power lines down all over. Trees are down.”
At the height of the outages, more than 300,000 customers lost power in and around southeast Louisiana and neighboring Mississippi. According to tracking website poweroutage.us, Louisiana alone had 150,000 residential and commercial customers without power. By this Friday morning, that figure had dropped to 22,000. Gov. Landry called power restoration the top priority at the moment and anticipates power to be fully restored by Sunday.
Francine left behind a large number of damaged homes and properties. That’s why Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple urges people to be careful, especially if they are returning home to significant storm damage. “Make sure it, you know, the local authorities have cleared it and deemed it safe to return. Or if you’re already at home, you sheltered at home, you know, be careful as you go out in your yard and inspect for damage.” Temple also reminds homeowners to gather essential information. Temple also strongly suggests taking photos of your property damage and keeping receipts for emergency repairs – to help speed-up the recovery process.
