LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) — Floodwaters continue to sit in areas of Acadiana asking their government for better drainage. The Derby Heights community in Lafayette has several residents who are still living with flooded streets.
Most of the neighborhood’s water in drains to Aris Drive, and it stayed there from Monday to Friday, and some of the elderly in the community haven’t left since their homes in all that time.
“We have been inundated with this type of stuff for years and years and years, and it’s time for someone to give us a solution, and it’s time for this to stop,” expressed Porsha Evans who lives on the lowest point of Aris Drive.
Throughout the week she’s missed doctor’s appointments and been unable to grab grocery afraid of what the front yard flood would do to her car.
She told News 10, “Every time there’s a hard rain you have to start praying and say, ‘Lord, what next?”
Kendrick Williams also lives in Derby Heights and added, “The bayou in the back of our homes got flooded, and it’s pouring into the park, and now it’s pouring into the neighborhood.”
When the rain pours and the Vermilion River rises, the low-lying area can’t drain fast enough to it. The most extreme case residents remember was in 2016.
“The water was in my home in 2016, and when it got on the driveway (in 2021), all I could think was ‘Please God, give us an opportunity for the water to go down,” Williams recalled.
With one close call less than five years after a total loss, Williams and his neighbors fear if the next 500 year flood or 100 year flood will hit in their lifetime.
They want the Vermilion dredged or something to keep moving and not renting space down their streets or in their homes.
“We just have a fear you know we want to get out, sell our homes,” Marcus Delacroix shared.
Forrest Senegal stated, “I’ve been here 30 years, and it looks like it’s getting worser and worser…We’ve had enough of this man. Enough is enough.”
The Lafayette Consolidated Government has does some work widening and deepening ditches in this neighborhood, but the people I spoke to say it just drains here faster to them and stays.
