Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – Already swelled from the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav, Lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas reached their breaking points Saturday evening as wind-blown storm surge from Hurricane Ike pushed water onto major highways and into neighborhoods in St. John Parish.

Several feet of water near Interstates 10 and 55 forced the closure of on-ramps and off-ramps for the highways at US 51 and Belle Terre Boulevard in LaPlace, the only interstate interchanges within the parish. The ramps re-opened Tuesday morning as water began to finally subside.

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Surge from the lake also managed to make its way into an assortment of residential subdivisions across the parish. Parish President Bill Hubbard said in a televised announcement Saturday evening that the parish was keeping a close watch on water levels in Cambridge, River Forest, Foxwood, Old 51, Homewood, Pleasure Bend, and Central Avenue area in Reserve. All of those areas reported high levels of water in the streets of the neighborhoods and parish officials re-opened sandbag distribution centers for residents to shore up their homes.

“We were prepared, but it was vey unexpected,” said St. John Public Information Officer Buddy Boe. “We did what we could to help residents protect their property, but the water came up pretty quickly.”

With all the high water in the area, Boe said about a dozen homes in the parish took on some amount of water. A handful of those homes were in the LaPlace Park subdivision, where residents spent Monday evening trying to clean up.

I’ve been here 26 years and I’ve only ever seen water in the streets,” said Wayne Naquin, whose Gardenia Street home took on about four inches of water in the back porch. “This is probably the worst I’ve seen since Juan came through here. That wasn’t even as bad.

Darren Jamison, Naquin’s next-door neighbor, said the houses along Gardenia Street do not have adequate protection from a major drainage canal that runs along resident’s back yards. The water in the canal was still way above normal levels Monday.

“All we have is about a two or three foot levee separating our back yards from the canal and it doesn’t even go the length of the street,” said Jamison. “If you look on the other side, the swampy area has a higher levee than we do.”

Residents also attributed the problem to fluctuating culvert sizes in the neighborhood. Jeff Walker, also of Gardenia Street, said the drainage culverts on Gardenia are wider than the ones draining into the canal. He said when it gets to the end of the block the water begins to bottleneck and back up into the streets.

“The water just has nowhere to go,” said Walker, who had a few inches of water in two rooms of his home. “There was also quite a bit of debris in that canal and I know that didn’t help.”

Sidney Keppard, another Gardenia resident, said his kitchen and living room area took on about six inches of water in about a two-hour time period. He spent Monday evening pressure washing and mopping his tile floor trying to sop up most of the muddy residue that remained when the water subsided.

“When I left for work Saturday morning, I told my wife to keep an eye on the levee because I could tell the water level was really high,” said Keppard. “When I called her a few hours later, the water was coming in.”

Keppard said he had only been in the home about two years and said he’d never seen the water come up so high. He said the water damaged a computer modem, a television, and all his kitchen cabinets.

“I’m just going to clean up and move on,” Keppard said.