FLOOD WATCH

From headwaters in Mississippi, the Comite River on the west and the Amite River on the east squiggle through the Florida Parishes to form a wishbone near the U.S. Highway 190 bridge at Denham Springs. No matter how the wishbone breaks, the luck turns bad when rain gauges fill—as they did in August 2016. In a few days, nearly half Louisiana’s average annual rainfall fell across East Baton Rouge and Livingston parishes. That means the Comite River Diversion Canal—a 12mile structure from southeast of Zachary to the Mississippi River—could signal the best chance for flood relief if it opens by 2025. Forty years in the making, the $560 million canal would divert floodwaters away from Central and Denham Springs and could lessen some of the statewide flood impact seen below in August 2016:

• 11 percent of affected households had flood insurance

• 13 lives lost

• 30 state roads washed out

• 54 percent of flooded homes outside the 100-year floodplain

• 200 highways closed

• 6,100 businesses flooded

• 11,000 people sheltered at storm’s peak

• 30,000 search-and-rescues performed

• 91,628 households flooded.

• 278,500 workers disrupted from jobs

• $110 million in agricultural losses

• $858 million in business structural and equipment losses

• $1.14 billion in economic labor losses

• $1.40 billion in business inventory losses

• $2.40 billion in first-year payments from the National Flood Insurance Program

• $5.12 billion in residential structure and contents damage

• 7 trillion gallons of rain