Avoyelles was 'prepared for the worst' from Cindy

Avoyelles Parish prepared for the worst but was pleasantly surprised with only a moderate impact from a short visit by Tropical Storm Cindy this past week.

“I will take this kind of tropical storm or tropical depression any day,” Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness Director Joey Frank said Thursday. “We beat the storm.”

Frank said there were no reports of flooding and only a few trees downed by winds that reached gusts of 28 mph. Rainfall in the parish ranged from 1.5 to 2.5 inches.

Avoyelles had initially been told to expect 3-5 inches over a two-hour period, and “up to 10 inches if it stalls over us,” Frank said. Later, the parish was told Cindy would stick around for up to 12 hours, but the expected rainfall was still less than five inches.

Cindy made landfall on the Texas-Louisiana border early Thursday. It became a “killer storm” Wednesday afternoon when a wave threw a log into a 10-year-old boy vacationing in Fort Morgan, Ala. The child was pronounced dead at the scene.

Sandbags and sand were made available in Mansura and Bunkie to parish residents to prepare for possible high water to protect homes and businesses.

One of those residents was Sandra Campbell of Bunkie, who went to the Bunkie’s sewage plant Wednesday morning to fill sandbags with her son-in-law and grandchildren.

“I flooded real bad in May from heavy rains and I’m not taking any chances with this storm,” Campbell said. “There is a chance of heavy rains and I don’t want water in my home again.”

Bunkie Street Superintendent Buddy Redmon said several people had come to the site to fill sandbags as a precaution, just in case heavy rains hit this area. Redmon said that predictions Wednesday were that the parish would be spared the worst of Cindy’s wrath, but his main concern was that a band of rain could pass over the Bunkie and dump several inches in a short period of time.

Cindy is the third named storm of the hurricane season.

The storm system started making her presence known to Gulf Coast communities Tuesday even before she officially earned her name as a tropical storm. Heavy rains struck communities from southeast Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. By Wednesday, the National Weather Service was warning of “life-threatening flash flooding” across the U.S. Gulf Coast. There were also tornado watches issued in some areas.

Cindy’s winds reached tropical storm status late Tuesday with sustained winds of up to 60 mph. Its projected path was between southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas. However, the rain to the east of the storm’s center had a much larger swath.

The National Hurricane Center was predicting rains of 3-6 inches in East Texas and 6-9 inches in coastal communities from Southeast Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. Some areas were warned they could get a foot or more of rain.

Elsewhere in the state, the Louisiana National Guard dispatched high water vehicles and helicopters into flood-prone areas. The Federal Emergency Management Agency moved 125,000 meals and 200,000 liters of water into the state for flood victims and evacuees.

Gov. John Bel Edwards said advance notice of the storm gave officials time to put emergency plans in place before the storm.