Contractors make sure the gate closes behind Erath Middle School. Superintendent Jerome Puyau checks over the doors Monday morning.
This is a generator that sits on top of a diesel storage tank. On the side of the generator are pumps that will pump water away from Erath High and Erath Middle School.
Once there was a softball/football practice field behind the Erath High gym. Today, the land is now a large retention pond.
There are drainages scattered on the grounds of Erath High and Erath Middle School. The water flows into the drainage pipe and then the water is pumped out into a bayou.
Vermilion Parish School employees begin closing flood protection wall gates
The Vermilion Parish school system is not taking chances when it comes to preparing for high waters in Vermilion Parish.
There are five schools with a flood protection wall around each school.
On Monday, the school system emergency plan kicked into effect and personnel were busying closing flood gates at each school.
The newest schools to get a flood protection wall, Erath High and Erath Middle, are being closed for the first time. Contractors, who have about 99 percent of work complete, were making sure all 12 gates were closed before a tropical system makes landfall in Louisiana. By this morning, the schools are prepared.
“We are taking a proactive measure,” said School Superintendent Jerome Puyau. “We are training our workers. We have teams assigned to every school. We are closing every gate except for one at each school.”
It takes around 15 minutes to have all of the gates closed at each school.
Schools with flood walls are: SeventhWard/Forked Island Elementary, E. Broussard Elementary, Erath High, Erath Middle and Dozier Elementary.
The August flooding was a life lesson for the school system. The good news is that no school with a flood protection wall flooded despite all of the rain. The bad news is that not all of the schools’ flood gates were closed.
“We built the flood gates, but we have had to test them,” he said. “The first time we did, everyone thought someone else would close them.”
A system, the Flood Crisis Plan for Flooding, was put in place. It assigned teams to be in charge of each school. If there is an order to close the gates, the team takes care of it.
“We are taking no chances and wondering who is going to close the gates,” he said. “We don’t want that to happen. We are taking a proactive approach.”
This will be the first test for Erath High and Erath Middle School. After a year, the wall surrounds the two schools.
With the gates closed, water is expected to remain on the school grounds. An impressive drainage system was built under the EMS and EHS. The water is expected to be pumped out of the school ground and pumped into Bayou Tigre located about 100 yards from the football stadium.
Puyau said while these five schools are protected, he is worried about other parish schools flooding due to heavy rain. With the historical flood in August, Kaplan schools flooded. He contacted Kaplan principals and requested they begin lifting things are the ground in case it floods again.
“We are doing all we can do before the rain arrives,” Puyau said.
Puyau said he plans to leave most of the gates closed until the start of school.
