Episode One | 46 Feet: Looking Back At The Historic 2016 Livingston Parish Flood 10 Years Later

0:30 In August of twenty sixteen, prolonged rainfall from an unpredictable storm resulted in catastrophic flooding in the state of Louisiana. In my city of Didham Springs, ninety percent of the homes received water, some forty two hundred homes. Of those, three thousand of these homes received eighteen inches or more of water twenty five to thirty inches of rain in less than seventy two hours. The Amete River, which cuts through the heart of Livingston Parish, crusted at forty six point two feet, some five feet above its previously recorded record and some seventeen point two feet above its flood stage at Denim Springs. Hey everyone, welcome back to Local Leaders the podcast Glad to welcome someone today that if you're watching this on YouTube, you probably recognize this guy.

1:43 He's he's done a little bit in the parish. When you say that, welcome Welsome, you've been, you've been everywhere. And what makes this guy unique, and of course I'm talking about Scooter Keane. What makes him so unique and why I reached out to him to come on the podcast is he he had a very unique story as it relates to the flood because he wasn't only in parish government at that time. And what were you? Oh, I was a parish counselman District. Three, District three the first year. We had just gotten sworn in. Yeah, right, welcome to the parish. Yeah. And in addition to that, you also own multiple businesses in the parish. We had a quick and handy drive cleaners.

2:24 Yep, my favorite cleaners since then. Yeah, parish government. He couldn't get enough of it. I couldn't. It was once once it gets in your bloodstream. Yeah, you want to help people, that's right. And I enjoy doing what I'm doing now working for Randy. Yeah. Yeah, Well I see you every week on YouTube you're young YouTube store anyway on that well here you talked every week. But uh, I felt it was necessary definitely to get you on the show because of that experience. You kind of saw it from both sides. You saw it from a parish leadership side and you also saw it from a citizen slash business own your side. So of course, for those maybe just joining us, we're talking about what we referred to as the Great Flood of twenty sixteen. But what's interesting, Scooter, is it wasn't the first flood in August of twenty sixteen.

3:18 Oh no, got us in March south of the interstate in to the east side. Yeah, pretty bad down there. And people forget about that one. A lot of people were affected by that down there, you know. They think, oh, there's not many people. There's a lot of people down there in southern Living. There really is. And that was primarily Mar. Paul Marpaul Springfield area down for Vincent Vincent. French settlement, Yeah. French settlement, and they got hit pretty bad. Because I remember calling Shane mac and I said, Shane, I said, it's flooding down there, and he goes, it is I said, yeah, man, I said, they got like sixteen inches of rain, you know, just us north of the interstate. And I said it's it's gonna be pretty bad. And he goes, well, okay, I said, you want to go check on it. So I went down to Springfield. That's about as far as I could get. I even tried to go to Ponchatula and you couldn't. It was over the bridge, you know, And I'm like, holy moly, here, what's going on? Because we were dry up up in Watson, you know, and so that was our first four a into Oh my god, we got to have recovery happening. Uh and thank god for Leighton Rix and Mark Harroll and the people who handled things, because we didn't.

4:35 Know y'all were all fresh. Oh, we were all new, all nine. Uh. You know, Tracy and John Wascombe had had some experience because they had been on city councils. So that's why we had made them the chair and co chair because we like, we don't put y'all y'all. Know how to run a meeting at least. And uh so that, yeah, that March March was kind of strange, you know. Yeah, and then you know, uh, then we were in recovery mode from March. You know, we were still in it when August happened. August happened, and I want to I want to talk a little bit about maybe take me through your experience.

5:17 We talked a little bit about this off camera, but uh, there was a couple of days there that were interesting, to say the least in that it was almost like a preparation for a flood. You never knew was coming, but you saw oddities in the weather, oh very much. You know, we had a council meeting that night, August eleventh, and we didn't even talk about that there may be a flood or you know, there was a little tropical system that was pushing through and it had been raining most of the day pretty hard. But it always rained pretty hard in South. We shouldn't, you know, That's what we did. And so we were actually a friend of our's wife had passed and we were going to the wake. So we all were in dress clothes and coats and you know, and I remember going through the meeting, no big deal.

6:05 I don't even remember what was on. It was probably something to do with the March flood, you know, for all I know. But we go to Walker, to the to the church for the thing. I mean, it's dumping all the way to Walker. We get soaking wet getting into church, get out of the church. We thought, man go home, right, sure. Well buy Friday, all hell had broken loose. People were flooding all over the parish, not just to the south this time, all the way up to the parish line. And we thought, well, it's just rain, it'll quit, yah. But it didn't quit. Like forty hours, it never let up, and thank god, my house didn't flood, but I could hear the rescue boats on Saturday, going into a Cadiana place and different areas. I could hear the airboats rescuing people.

7:00 I'm sitting there, Kane, hardly get out of my road, couldn't get to sixteen. And that was on Saturday. By Sunday, you know, we could get out a little bit and went checked on shelters and did things. We couldn't even get in touch with the parish president because all the phone. Systems and was not existing. The radios wouldn't even work. You know, they've given us a radio, said y'all might need radios. Why we might need radios never crossed our mind. The most catastrophic thing that could ever happen in Livingston Parish was about to happen. And so you know, and on my business in downtown Denim and we built one foot above the eighty three crest.

7:41 That's all we built. And what it crest eight feet higher than eighty three. Didn't get water in my building. Which yeah, and you had multiple businesses, you have one on one. On South Range that took on water on Saturday Saturday. And I called just she made I said, Joe Mack, I have got to get down there and see. No, you can't come into town. We're not allowing anybody in. And I'm like wait, but he says, still be there. It's either gonna be flood there or not. Right, don't get in this and cause more issues. And you know, and I was kind of mad at Joe. Sure's my business, but he was protecting the city and the resources. You know, we don't have a whole lot of resources as far as fire and police for something that major, that covered ninety percent of the structures. So he finally called me on like Sunday afternoon. He goes, hey, come meet me and I'll bring you down there. So we brought the delivery vans, loaded everything up, brought it to the main plant that hadn't flooded. When we drove up, my wife had put something in the sliding door on the side so that if it was turned over she would know wow.

8:55 And it was sitting there and she goes, oh my god, we didn't flood. And later that night a friend of mine from Baton rouge On Welsh's cleaners, Ricky Welsh, he sent me an aerial view of the cleaners and you could see the water in the parking lot all the way around it, but it didn't flood us because God knew we needed to be open, and we processed fifty thousand pieces of clothes in five weeks. Wow, we got opened on Tuesday morning. Employees made it in. We started processing clothes. The very first customer backs up a truck full of soaking, wet clothes covered in sewage, and God knows whatever, and so for about an hour we cried with these people. Then the next truck pulls in, and I told my wife, I feel for everybody. You know, we flooded five times and holding growing up from Tickfall River. Sure, but I feel for these people. But if I don't get started on these clothes right now, they're all going to rootin. So I said, you're gonna have to cry with people. I got to get in the back, and you know it, So September well, then to August. By then, so middle August one hundred and twenty five degrees in the back of the shop. We were working sixteen hour days.

10:09 But we knew we had to do everything we could to help people because they had lost everything, everything but that dress that was special to them, or that christenin outfit for their kid. We saved those and got them back to them, you know. Yeah, and that's you know, from someone on the obviously outside of that, and I didn't own the cleaners. We just we didn't even realize the clothes could be saved, and so we were literally just I can remember, oh yeah, right there in the pile. And that kind of moves me to my next thought is Okay, that you know what happened, happened, and we all know what happened, and now you've got to put your parish government out on the right because.

10:51 While we're still trying to run at us at the same time that we're trying to get people permitted to get back in their homes and everything else, to get them gutted and let their life move on. You know, Thank goodness, we didn't have a huge loss of life. We did lose a few people in the parish. Been a lot worse it could have. You know, one life is too many, too a thousand. That's like who would have dreamed that coffins had popped out of the ground all over the parish? Yeah, everywhere that flooded. And so that was a dawning task for for you know, the people to come back and try and identify who were in these boxes.

11:33 Yeah, you know the cemetery. Yeah, everywhere down below a lot. So a lot of people in the city had done in springs. They have the big marble overlays and all. They kept it from doing it. Matter of fact, after this flood, we had so many questions that we had no answers. I mean we're like, you know, probably what six of the nine councilmen flooded, Light and Rick flooded, you know. And so they come to us about the coffins and they go, we need you to make a new ordinance. And it's been a while. It wasn't right away, but they said, we need you to make sure that a tag is a fix to every coffin from now on, that it can't come off like stainless steel with the information on it.

12:22 And I'm like, y'all do they telling us this is a thousand year rain event. This ain't ever gonna happen again. And they're like, well, look at you know, Cotton Port and Mansurh and all that. The other day they had the same thing, you know, from a tropical system that just hung out. And so we all these things, and so we were new. We'd just gone through one flood in Marshall, so we was trying to kind of weed through that. And then here's August and we're trying to weed through that. So our first two years wasn't about oh well, let's fix ordinance on how you're going to build your house. Was like, let's fix that. You get to rebuild your house.

13:03 That's right. And in addition to that, you had you had I don't know how many homes, thousands of homes that have piles of debris in their front yards and it's up to the parish, you know, anything outside of city limits obviously, who is who's going to pick this up? We had a standby person on under contract that if you had these type of things, because you'd have tornadoes that hit and all these different things, and if you got a declaration, then FEMA would pick up hauling off of all the debris. So we had to breed contractor on standby, and they do now. We always have to have. That, Yeah, thankfully. Matter of fact, I was going through my phone earlier to help Lizzie to get her some pictures, and I was I had pictures of a Kadiana where I went check on Jamie and that everybody everything that everybody owned everything, not some things. Everything was stacked by the roads. And one picture said are they coming to pick this up today?

14:03 I can't get my fifth wheel out of the driveway to go dump the sewage. Can you get it? Was somebody sent me said can you check on this scooter and see when they're gonna come? Yeah, you know, I didn't even think about that that. Okay, they did get to They bought them a fifth wheel or they had one, parked it in their driveway because we made an ordinance allowing them to do that. But then they gutted their house and then well normally you'd say, I'm gonna call somebody come pump my septic out on my fifth wheel when they nowhere to drain it. Who they all flooded to No businesses were open. Oh, we were so blessed. Uh.

14:43 My daughter and son in law and my son and his wife might have been his girlfriend a time, lived in Baton Rouge and they called us and said, hey, can we get to dinn On Springs because we're gonna come help you all at cleaners. Because they were attorneys and and you know, uh different things like that didn't have any work. They were flooded in Baton Rouge too. They didn't flood, but you know the business a lot of businesses did too, and said, yeah, but can you find us some food because we got eighteen people here working and nowhere to buy even some sandwich meat. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Wal Mart's all flooded everything all. So they came and they found Red Cross set up. Thank god for Red Cross.

15:25 A lot of people complained, well, I only got a cold sandwich. You know what, a coal sandwich was better than no sandwich, or the beans wasn't cooked enough. I'm like, oh wait a minute, folks. Yeah, we're not a big mic. No, that's right. We're getting what we can get. And we've been blessed that they were here doing things and that look Red Cross would I mean Samaritans person? All these different people, the Cajun navies that popped up because of the flood have been instrumental in saving and helping thousands and thousands of people since the sixteen flood. So I guess our disaster turned into a major helpful a lot of people since then. It really did. And you know the pressure I couldn't imagine. Look, I flooded and lost every fricking thing I owned, had three kids, a wife, And I'm not special because I was one of three thousand, five thousand people in that same situation. I was blessed because I did have structure insurance.

16:29 Now didn't have contents insurance, I learned later, But I did have structural insurance, and I was blessed to have that. There were a lot of people that didn't have either. And I retired folks right next to me that were happy to not pay that flood insurance anymore because they had just paid their house off. And I don't have to pay this stupid flood insurance anymore. It's never gonna flood. Are the people in flood zone X. So yeah, the figure that I got was like eight ninety percent of floods on X flooded. So it's so important even though you go, well, let's say you didn't flood in sixteen either flood, but yet you're an X. My house is paid off. I didn't have to buy it in the first place. Please go get some flood insurance. It's cheap.

17:20 Peace of mind if it's. One hundred dollars a month and you don't have to think about it. They'll cover you up to two hundred and fifty thousand and I'm not sure how much the contents is, but it's very cheap insurance. Yeah, everybody. You know, there's a lot of people since then paying four or five thousand. Dollars me, you know, but I pay it. You pay it. What were you y'all were? Probably in I was. I was. I don't know what what zone it would be. Probably I was required to carry a flood insurance and it was God because I wouldn't have paid it if I wasn't required. It ain't a floods ten years ago. It was like, wow, that's eight hundred bucks.

18:01 I'd take it all day long now. But I do pay it because obviously because I've been in that situation and I made sure I had contents insurances time. But from a parish perspective, y'all are juggling all of. This while running our day to day lives a lot of pressure. Yeah, a lot of pressure. And it felt like you were dropping the ball all day every day. New experience couldn't help people. It's learning on the fly. It was almost like having when you have a baby that's sick. Yeah, and you can't soothe the whatever it is that's happening. That's how we felt with one hundred and fifty thousand people. Yeah, you know, because most of them had some good If you were one of a few like I was, that didn't your home or your the plant didn't flood, it was almost like we felt guilty.

18:51 Yeah that you know that. I bring into so many people like that, and they they they had almost a guilty feeling. Why why did I not flood? And you you hit it on the head. God needed you to clean people's clothes. That's exactly what it was. Tell people they go, oh, you flood and said no, we were very blessed. And my wife goes, no, don't call it that, because that means other people weren't blessed. I said, no, baby, I said, everybody's blessings are different. You lost everything in your house, but your house is still there. You got it gutted, You're going to rebuild. That was your blessing. You could have lost the house, absolutely, you know so. But it was so many weeks of this heartache. And then after that came rebuilding roads that tore up, rebuilding structures, Parish, the jail, I mean everything flooded.

19:42 Yeah, you know. I mean y'all had tons of money. Yeah we had. Oh, actually, so we had spare money to do that. I watched my interview with Ken Benitas on the inauguration day in January sixteen, and he goes, I want you to, Scooter, I want you to tell me why you ran for this job when other people were going, Man, that's the worst job to have in Livingston Parish right now. And I said, because it's time to give back. Because like I said in that we did a podcast. Way back years ago. Yeah, and I told you what, if it wasn't for the people Livingston Parish, I wouldn't be anything. I wouldn't have had anything. I just have a job somewhere, you know, working whatever.

20:23 No. I allowed me to run my business and to give back, but we never had time to give back, you know. But working in the permit office as I'm into planning and zoning, planning and development. Yeah, you're seeing a lot of the results of this. Now and now with the different things that we did a lot and then when Randy got it take took over as parish president when he won his election. Now we're doing the drainage master plan for the entire parish. We've done many, many drainage projects that would have never happened had the flood not happened. Okay, during Layton's years and now with Randy uh so many in the future, like we're gonna be letting a bid soon for dredging Amy River from Port Vincent all the way to Lake. Yeah, dredging it not just scooping out the trees, right, Okay, Now that's just one of many things. Oh but you know, these things wouldn't have we wouldn't even thought about it.

21:28 We'd have just been moping long, you know, doing our things. One hundred percent. And I see that a lot with the council meetings now and both from the administrative side and the other side of the council, where uh first and foremost in people's mind is drainage. Now, I'll say this, and this is my belief on that flood. That was a storm that's set up over an area and never moved for three days. And I am of the belief that you could have the best drainage in the world. And if you get thirty six inches of rain in three days, you're gonna flood.

22:11 Nothing you can do. You may not have six feet like I had my house. That's right, it may only be two. But still so I heard that from day one. Oh y'all over developing the parish. You're covering everything with concrete. It wouldn't matter if there was nothing but cow pastures left and you got thirty six inches, everything would have still flooded. Existing And so a lot of the things that are happening, like right now, we're doing eighty million dollars. We bonded out eighty million dollars for roads. Council voted to bond it out and it's gonna be set up in twelve different separate road program projects. We're doing cross coverts, We're doing drainage on every project. Now that's gonna help during rain events. Sure, five six inches make no difference whatsoever during a thirty to thirty six you can't make enough capacity for that. It's like the arb C is getting approved to put they they've already bought up a Meet River Basin Commissions already bought up land along the Upper a Meet to use old gravel mines as retention to pull some of the water off the a Meat river store it and then as it goes down then it'll let it back into the river. So that'll help certainly help you know, the Amy River diversion canal, I mean the Comeat River diversion.

23:43 We'll see help Baton Rouge more than probably living. In central you know, if we get a few inches lower level, that'll help the eighty three style floods. But nothing that there's no that would that won't help thee now. In that short period of time. I wish there was something you could snap your fingers and we all do, but you can't. There's just no way. You know, we have Floodplaine Manager Kim Hymil in my office and we deal with so now with zoning. Now we have zoning. Every single thing. I have to check the zoning. Then we got to check the flood zone.

24:27 Then we've got to see, you know, if it's the floods on whether they have to fill mitigation and retention and how much. So those things are going to help on a ten twelve fourteen inch of rains. Yes, that'll keep water out of some houses that used to flood. And that's a great thing if it keeps you for one matter of fact, that Thursday that started raining. I told you I was on the way home. I was headed to Dunroad before I went home to get dressed for the council meeting. Because they had two houses off a done road that every time it rained three or four inches, they were getting water on them in the houses.

25:07 And they had gravity one with Wesley Kennerberg had dug new drainage behind these houses. And I'm standing out there in the driving rainstorm and watching the water leave instead of getting in them two houses. And I got beat to death over that, putting that drainage inure. So some people had to move their fences that had been built in the drainage servitude. But if it kept it out of two houses, these people, some of them had dug holes and put pump some pumps in them so that it pumped the water away from their house. When all it took was it was really a swell about eight to twelve inches deep at the deepest, you know, between two subdivisions. But it's never flooded again since then. And I would have been fine losing my election at that next election knowing them two houses.

25:59 Did absolutely And that's what you want out of your council with these improvements that you're seeing is you look, the twelve inches of rain, fourteen inches of rain are going to be a lot more common than the forty inches, and so those are the things that you want to stave off the massive event like we had in twenty sixteen. Hopefully none of us ever see that again, but it could, but it certainly. But anything's possible. Things possible. But you're going to see a lot of those ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen inch rains a ton. Of that's a five hundred year reign event when you get that like sixteen inches. Yeah, and we get it a couple times a year. Sure, Yeah, it's moving up a little bit now it's one hundred year event, it really is.

26:44 And no, it's like a yearly event. But you got a factor in from the beginning to time. That's right. Oh, it only happens every hundred years. Yeah. But this council we have in place now, they've approved a drainage master playing the money to spend on that. They the road program where they're putting all the drainage in. So they are improving Livingston Parish as a whole by doing all these things. Except for the event of a catastrophic flood. That's right, and we can't and nobody can fix it. Nobody can fix it, nobody can really predict it. But I'll tell you what matters and what's important from a citizens standpoint, and that is you have people like a Scooter Keing somewhere in parish government still that experienced it.

27:31 Because you can't replace experience. And you guys, the majority of you guys in those particular positions, have been through it. You kind of know what to do to start. Well, nobody wants to ever see it again, but I want someone in there that's been there and done that, and you learned a lot from that first one. Well, I've got several friends on this new council and I call them friends help Billy Taylor that beat me, I call them a good friend. Yeah. As we talk all the time. And John Mangus, for instance, goes to church with us, been in men's club, everything together. He'll call me and go, Scooter, he said, I'm working on this ordinance. What is the planning department? See how would it fit together in this ordinance? And I'm like, well, John, I'll check. And so we're working. The administration's working really well with the councils to bring change. It was a new day Livingstone right when they all got elected. The best thing ever happened in my life was to lose.

28:35 It really was eight years. My family was tired of it. My wife was tired of everybody living. Some parents were tired of seeing me. But I didn't really go anywhere. But I'm here, but I'm not in that capacity. I'm not making laws. I'm helping every chance I get. Mister Randy said, look, any of those counselmen d D my actual boss DD to that she goes anytime they need help with SF. We're in this. We see it every day and they're wanting to fix the problems. To tell them what you're seeing. Help them all try to get it right, which you can't because there's no perfect gardenances right period. You write it, it looks great, they go to do it. Well, they got around that again. Let's try something else, you know, right, But these all these guys work so hard. That's like the pay raise. They finally passed the pay raids for the council a couple of weeks ago, and it doesn't apply to this council.

29:30 It'll be whoever's in there next time. I tried for eight years and couldn't get the fifth boat. You know, and they if the average person knew how much time y'all spend. Oh lord, whether you agree with the counselman, disagree with the counselman, they put in their time. They need to talk to mister for small change. Joe walks. He comes around with his notebook, and mister Joe has been helping with flooding issues. With anybody calls him, he's gonna go. Yeah, Well he's like man, he said, I spend wading more than twelve hundred dollars a month, he said, in forty hours a week. That's funny. Yeah, I mean, I mean, even at at the raise level that they got, it's costing you more money than you're making. There's no doubt about it. It's still uh, you know, being a public servant. Yeah, nobody.

30:22 And look, you don't sign on for the money, but you want it at least make enough to put some gas in your truck. You don't want to lose. You don't want to lose money. If you can help you and if it's okay, But when you go one thousand dollars in the hole every month from doing a job. He's like, I need a different job, right, yeah, And it's thankless because no matter what you do, even if it's on drainage, well we we don't want you to do all that. God forbid? Are we having to change a bridge out? Well, how long is it gonna take? Well, I mean you want to take a chance. And I was in Holding this morning. I went to Purple Bean to check on them and have a cup of coffee and I said, anything pressing up here? And they said, oh, Highway ten thirty six bridge last week they deemed was unsafe. Well, the new bridge. This is a wooden bean bridge that's been there since before I grew up Holding. Okay, And so they're going to replace that bridge with a new concrete and they're not going to have to block the channel nearly as much. So all the debris not going to be all polypic huge.

31:32 So that's a big the bridge. Yeah, well it will. And I don't know how that bridge is still there after all those floods. Sure, but those things are. And that's the state, you know. Of course Paris has nothing to do with it. They can't state highway. But all of those things working together will improve when we have moderate flooding, okay, instead of massive flooding. Matter of fact, So I got a little place a hunt in Baton Rouge on the a Meat River. But it's right off O'Neill Lane. And last winter when I go hunting, I'm off on Friday, Saturday, Sunday right work for parish government. It flooded three times where I couldn't go hunting this past fall, this one that happened two or three weeks ago, with four inches of rain, got to thirty and a half feet on the gauge on one ninety right here in Dentil, right thirty and a half.

32:25 Yeah, it's a little bit close. Well, that's I don't like to see that it's over flood. I mean it's technically ever minus twenty six is minor flood. So you're getting close to the middle of major, you know, moderate flooding. Yeah, okay, with four inches. Oh but it rained twelve inches in the watershed, so that's what happened, you know. And then when it gets down that's why the dredging of the a Meat on the lower end, because when it gets down, if it's got nowhere to go, it just backs up and then you get what you got in. Or it flows so slow that it allows it to back up, and that's what you want. That's why the dredging is so important. Because the faster that water flows through here and out of Lake ponta train somewhere, the faster that happens, the less likely the.

33:18 Right. But those things all work together, and you only have a finite amount of funds, you know, we less since the flood. We've gotten many many grants for things right and and uh. And that's a good thing because without. The shoutout to Heather and search for that. That's that group over there, you know, Susan and Heather, and they constantly you know, and Randy made that one of his priorities. You'll go and look for every grant to do all the things we've been trying to do. Grand managers are worth their waiting out. And it's amazing. I told them at the infrastructure meeting Wednesday night. So I'm sitting listen about all the future projects and all these things. Of course, it's gonna take money, I told him. I've I was on that council for eight years and we did some great things. We worked together on a lot of stuff. We argued about a lot of stuff. Me and Randy argued about a lot of stuff. And that's why I think that's why he brought me in, because I would I would just say, Okay, I don't like it, you like it, let's fight about it right here, and then we'd get through and we'd be like, okay, nothing personal.

34:29 You're not a guess man. No, but the bottom of the parish is built completely different as District three up here, you know, so what would work in some part of the parish we didn't think was right into other parts. So but but I told him, I said, guys, I said, and if like Ricky and Lonnie John Wascombe and mister joe. Erdie is on the shure. Yeah, I think that's who it is. I said, guys, I've seen more the past two and a half years under Randy the Laddin. And I said, and that's not a slap it late we had no money, yeah, when he you know, I said, but I've seen more happen drainage wise, roads wise, planning wise, cutting the budget, cutting the fat out of the budget wise. Then I could have ever imagined, you know. At one point I thought about running for parish president. Could not have done it like mister Randy does.

35:30 Know he's done eight and he don't stop. Phenomenal job. Oh my god, he doesn't stop ever. It's like I say, where's miss Randy. Oh well, he's here a minute ago, truck's gone. Yep. You know, he gets after it. And I got no complaints me either. He's done. I don't hear complaints from anybody, you know. Period. Chris Anderson, OEP director doing a great job. You know. Robert du Got DPB director Rock total rock. I know this stuff, and. We trade jabs at meetings and all people like you can't talk to mister Robert la that I said. We used play football together. I do whatever we want, you know.

36:11 But and Roberts including me in more and more, like the Better Roads program that's eighty million. I go to those meetings every week or two and we talk about where are we now, when's the next project coming out? And we got to get it to the council for approval and then we'll let the bids on it. You know, the first five out of twelve came out with Drainage with everything else. Four different companies on five bids. So that way they can all be working at the same time to get all these roads done. Instead of well, we finished in District three and two, we're gonna move down to here, We're gonna move over here. And it's I won't say it's a master plan, but it is a plan of we're gonna fix two hundred and sixty seven miles of roads before the end of next year.

37:05 Look, and that is a major step forward for the parish. And I think a lot of it, a lot of the improvement I've seen, we kind of touched on it. But it is a result of a horrific situation that we never wanted to go through and pray we never go through again. But they're the positives that came out of the ability to take something and say, let's take something that's so tragic you wouldn't believe it and at least make some good out of this. You know, we talked about this a little bit a while ago. As soon as soon as everyone got everybody rescued out of floodwaters and the shelters were set up, shelter North Park to shelter at the church on Lockhart Road, Lockhart Baptist. I think is where I got pictures of them feeding people and animals tied up donkeys and horses and all tied up to their fences where people were bringing their animals. Okay, cats and boxes and all these things.

38:07 Then everybody worked together and it didn't matter if you were black, White, Asian, Spanish. It did not matter. Now I'm coming out of water, didn't I. Oh, It didn't matter if you had a dollar or ten million dollars. Everybody was treated exactly the same. We were all one people Livingston Parish. We're still there, still there, okay, And as long as it's like this and one group of people can't fix any issue, but everybody doing their little part for whether you from your church or from your fire department or from your police whatever, working all together.

38:47 When another thing happens, we're going to hit it again, just like it was again. And I say it all the time, Scugar, that no one can fight amongst each other like Livingston Parish can, but nobody can come together for each other. That's right. And I believe that because I believe there's very few cities or parishes rather in the country, and I know we don't have parishes all over the country, and everybody for counties if you will. In other aspects, yeah, that would have made it through this better. We made it through this better as a community in so many ways, and the credit goes to you know, like you say, everybody, but the leadership at the top made a big difference.

39:38 You were part of that. Yeah, but I know you're not going to take credit for it, but you were. Leyton Ricks certainly the parish government as it is now with Randy. And all these very hard decisions in the first few days that you know, we had to answer for for a while. Sure know, FEMA was like, wait, you can't do that. Mister Layton was doing his very best to get his people back in their home right, and we still have some fallout from it now ten years later, and we're working through it as it comes up. You know, like I said with Kim with the building official Kevin, whenever we have an issue, we figured it all out, talk to FEMA, get it cleared up for whoever's in having an issue, and move forward. Now, another thing that happened since Randy took over. We got back into crs PA did which is which is a fifteen percent discount.

40:40 That's right, but they're not giving it to you unless you tell them and ask for So when you get renew your insurance, make sure you let those people know and we can get you a letter from the parish saying yes. Mister Mangus went to get his done. He said, oh, no, y'all are back in. But unless we get a letter saying we don't have to give you a discount. So what did he do? Kim got a letter? You go. You know, look, I called my uh something on that topic. I called my insurance agent as soon as I heard about this state farm and I said, hey, I got my bill in. And in between the time that I got my flood insurance bill in, the CRS writing came out and it dropped for this parish. And so he's doing on his computer and he says, well, you're showing your rate went down, and so they must have known that by the time they build you. Now I'm saying, are you sure, I'm like, and he says, he says, I'm one hundred percent sure. And I said, how are you one hundred percent sharing? He said, because your rate would have never dropped unless something happened. So he said, you you saved about fifteen percent ever last year it's not going to go down if they didn't know that the CRS writing, So I take him at as well.

41:56 Ava whether you're X or A or A ease zones, it's a fifteen percent and get better. Between Miss Cindy O'Neill and Kim I Mail, they've been working, work and working to get us to a six. Now now there's it's tough because you've got to get points in all these So we're looking for low hanging fruit. Had to meet with Half two weeks ago. That's who's doing the Drangers master Plan and UH along with ge C and others. But we said, where's some low hanging fruit that we can get something now? Right? To get it down the twenty five percent? Yeah, you know, a quarter off?

42:37 So what what I'm hoping it'll do As we get it down lower, the people in X will go ahead and buy if they if they don't have it now go ahead and buy it. And what that does It replenishes the pool for one one reason, so that when the disasters happen, there's enough money in it to help people without having to go back to Congress. And you know how that is. And and peace of mind, that's what you were talking about Livingston parents pulling together my old cages. They look out for one though, you better believe it. I'm married to one. Marianne that was my manager for so long at the cleaners.

43:18 She moved back to the valls after she retired. Yeah, and she called and she said, miss K, we need D humidifiers. Well, they had already had a truck loaded up. I think it was a loads truck. They were donating hundreds of D humidifiers. We don't need them back, get them to those people did dry them houses out so they don't get full. Of old Oh yeah, we need sts. K had fans, you know, but uh, I mean none of these people had experienced flooding. Most none of them were born. They were like us when we flooded, had no idea what to do? What do you cut your sheet rock at a lot of these people just had a foot and that do I do I gut before the theme of people come by or after? And all those questions that nobody knew the answer to. Now there's a lot of people know. They answered, I know exactly what to do.

44:07 So we met with half a couple of weeks ago on training and getting ready during Blue sky days, so that when something does happen, when it's not blue anymore, it's black, it's just pouring. Yeah, the parish will be ready because we didn't. We weren't ready. We had no idea it was ready. You know, all of this is this is Randy Ready that got a vision and he's he's running with it, and it's okay if you don't like it. Yeah, you're not gonna like everything every politician wants to do. You hat to run into one that I agree with one hundred percent? Well, what kind of world would that be? After spending hours diving into these crazy cases, the last thing I want is to lie there staring at the ceiling because the sheets feel rough or I'm sweating all night.

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45:59 That's cozyearth dot com and use the code exposed it checkout for thirty percent off. You know, we got fifty million dollars after the flood of sixteen to clean out every creek stream, lateral ditch you know, which caused a problem because now there's no water retained in the woods and it's getting to the Meet river much quicker. It's leaving the walk the northern part of the parish in a hurry uprate. But where does that put it? So where did he go looking for the first project on Amy or the lower end. So they cleaned the entire thing out from parish line all the way down to the lake, the fallen trees just like two years ago.

46:45 I remember. Okay, that wasn't flood money. That was another grant that did that. But now the river's flowing so good that uh oh, we got to fix the weir. We got a dredge lower Livingston. Yeah, because Lower Livingston would be in a buine if we had twenty something inches up here, and we got it to them really fast. Oh yeah. And so that's what mister Randy's concern is. Okay, we got this fixed up here, but. Now the Interstates and I'm below the Interstates. And so when you leave the unfunded draining districts, leave the funded draininge districts and get into all the unfunded that's all DPW. That's all that's available to clean out creek streams, laterals, ditches, you know, our own you know.

47:31 And so there's only a finite amount of money. It's like ten million dollars years all DPW is run on. Yah, people got ten million dollars. That's a lot in today's dollar. Doesn't get you very far. Robert did a fantastic job on this, on this Better Roads program. Every bid is coming in seven hundred thousand to a million. I saw that under what he thought it was going to be what the engineers thought, not what Robert thought. Robert's not engineer, sure he's been seeing this for forty years. But that's big because then if you run into a drainage, let's say, a sixty inch culvert that's got to be changed out that wasn't in the bid when they ain't got money to cover it. Yeah, you know, and those on those local levels are going to make a big difference. There's lots of things happen, Like Walker's got a major project going.

48:23 They did a cea between the parish and the town of Walker, City of Walker sorry to get the water on the Coyo Creeks through the city. But then it hits the unfunded drainage district. So all they have is DPW. And remember we tried to fund the drainage district. I guess this district EID is what they call the one that's seventy eighty percent of the parish. Yes, and we have to keep trying to fund that. The parish councilmen talk about it a lot, and they go, oh, but people are so anti tax, and I said, they were anti tax for draining after the flood, so it's going to be really hard to get somebody by. But looky, Killian.

49:07 Killian just voted in a one cent sales tax passed by a lot because they needed it, because Killian is growing. I do want to thank you for continuing on with some other things. Yeah. So I'm still in the politics part. Whether you want to be in there or not, it is what it is. I don't get political because my job's not political. You know, if you send me to go talk to some people because they're not happy, I try and make them happy. I can't ensure that I will because you know it's on them. Had a gentleman the other day was having issues up in Watson and mister and he said, go see if you can help those folks, because that mystery won't say help everybody period. Okay, So I went and it was something we couldn't do, you know, And I told them what we could possibly do to help him.

50:01 And I saw him outside of Walmart sunday. Ego. Man, he said, tell mister Rendy, thank you that we got it lined out and and it's just just y'all talking about it with other people helped us. You know, sometimes it's something you can't do with taxpayer money, and he won't do it with tax payer money. You know, he knew. I mean, Brandy's been a politician for a long time, sure, and but he doesn't act like it, you know, because he'll do things that you shouldn't do as a politician and want to get it reelected. But he goes this the right thing. We're going to do it well. And at the end of the day, I think that's what makes your your best leaders. All people that are going to do the right thing, even when it's hard.

50:45 That's the one. And even when it pisses somebody off, they feel like, this is what needs to be done. That's what they were and you'll do it and move on to the next thing. I believe that the animal shelter, I mean we wanted to do I ran on animal shelter the first time. Yep. Oh we can't do that. Oh it's going to bleed the perish drive. Oh it's gonna No. He found a way, found a way, and it's fantastic. And I cry every day. I'm looking at Facebook and I'm like, oh, yeah, maybe. I need to I want to you want to get every one of them. Yeah, you can't. They had ninety nine dogs in there this weekend. Yeah, and you know they adopt out fifteen or twenty a week. Yeah, so people need to go to we can try to do a podcast on Okay, we're here now, so let's let's support all the things that are coming. You know.

51:37 Absolutely make people aware of part parts tags. They vote down parts time, you know, and then they voted it baby people. Family entertainment. No, it's very the park, very cheap folks for what they offer, courts everything, Yeah, no. How much is a picnic table? Yeah? Well, so I was in the Livingston this year. Mister Randy wanted me to go. Why I'm old, right, but just I picked up several things that I did not know about our parish. Sure that will now help me in my job. One of the best things I ever did was was do that program and saw everything from where boats are made that you would have never have any idea that that was in Paris. Uh, the Hungarian Settlement something I was I was familiar I knew about, but I was not familiar with.

52:34 Pasted in and said they. Got oh, look at that's cool, but don't realize the history behind. Yes, that's right. Uh so a lot of things learning you know about how the jail works and and uh government and all of the things you learn in that brand. So anybody that's interested in doing that should do that. Our project is Spring Park, right, and we're building a walking trail down to the springs. One of my favorite made me bring it. Up, picnic take. So we're buying six picnic tables and five benches. Well it was like ten thousand dollars. You would never think, you know, but. They're eighty eight complying. They're built to last forever. They're coated. That's right. If you're going to buy something by the by the good stuff.

53:15 Yeah, you don't want to buy a wooden't one where you're replacing it every four years. And Buffy, Buffy, that's. Yeah, oh yeah, amazing. Buffy was on my team, thank god. And Buffy is amazing. You know. I hope calvins a picnic table on our on our team. But like like Michelle and Heather, all these guys, John Mangus was on and they don't know. No, it's kind of like Randy don't understand. Can't there's no can't, right, right, we got to figure it out. And uh so, our parish, our parents is in good shape, hopefully for at least the next nine and a half years, because Randy's gonna run two more times. Yeah, And I'll be there if he wants me there. If he doesn't want me there, I'll go back to doing what I was doing, which was nothing. When he comes.

54:11 Well, I'm sure he's fine with you being there, and certainly you're an asset. Certainly you're an asset. So thank you so much for coming on scooter, sharing your experience with that flood and the parish' side of that, and we'll see you next time. If there was only a manual for all the future people to go. By, well, I'm telling you you know, will you write that. I'll get Ran task him to write that manual. Need to do that. There you go. Thank y'all so much for listening. Until next time, I'm you and Chapman reminding you love your community, support local business and keep leading. Thank you