BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – State experts gathered in Baton Rouge Thursday to discuss Louisiana’s most notorious type of disaster, flooding.
With the threat of heavy rains weekly during severe weather season, the Louisiana Floodplain Management Association (LFMA) says it is important to have their Annual Technical and Business Conference.
“Just a great time for our members who are floodplain managers and design professionals, who build storm water management and water management, things that’s going to help our communities to not flood,” said Michelle Gonzales.
Gonzales is a chairwoman of the LFMA board, she said they are looking at every option to keep from getting into your home.
“Really looking at how are we moving our state forward in a way that’s smarter rather that’s looking at policy and how do we build houses safer,” said Gonzales. “Things like how we design projects that’s going to move the water out of our streets, keeping it from coming into our homes.”
They said we can prevent our personal items from being flooded by a few steps.
“Litter gets into our storm drains and you won’t imagine how much that clogs our storm drains. One, citizens, just don’t throw it out the car window. If you have storm drains in front of your house, in front of your business, help pitch in get those storm drains up, and as much as its one of those hot topics items right now, get flood insurance,” explained Gonzales.
The goal of this meeting is to get the best ideas from across the state to use as a “jump-off” point to try to come back safer in the future.