LAFAYETTE, La. — The Lafayette Development Authority recently hosted a meeting with local community members to discuss strategies for protecting Lafayette's historic downtown area from severe flooding.
"This is an old part of town," said Kevin Blanchard, CEO of the Downtown Development Authority. "We have very old infrastructure, and so, over the years, while the rest of the city has grown and everything else, there’s been a lot more pressure on our drainage system, not just for downtown but for all the old areas of town, and so, if we don't start focusing on what are those big approaches to start really making a dent in this problem, we're only getting further behind."
Proposed plans involved identifying locations within and around the downtown area that can store water, drawing inspiration from other major cities facing similar flooding challenges.
"We have a bottleneck, and downtown is a bowl, and so, how do we store that water so it doesn't get into people's businesses? The best place to do that is under our public infrastructure—under our streets, under our parks," Blanchard said. "We can't have detention ponds downtown. We don't have enough room for that, but we can both marry our street infrastructure with the drainage infrastructure in a way that will help our economic development."
The proposal called on the city to locate areas for water storage, such as public or private lots, streets and parks. The Downtown Development Authority suggested that approximately 73 to 100 square feet is needed to manage flooding effectively. It also recommended shifting the focus of ongoing street scraping projects aimed at improving walkability on Lee and Johnston Streets to prioritize drainage enhancements instead.
"The main takeaway here is we didn’t get into this problem overnight—we’re not going to get out of it overnight, but if we have a plan that we can all, kind of, pull on the same rope and figure out how to do together, that's the only way we're going to get out of it," Blanchard said.
Blanchard was confident these measures could address flooding issues, but he emphasized the necessity of community support and collaboration.
"It’s going to take a while, and it's going to take some coordination, but I saw what we were able to do on April 24. I saw the folks come out and rally behind downtown. I know we can do the same," he said.
Blanchard estimated that these large-scale plans may take five to 10 years to fully implement, but having a plan in place represents a significant step toward a stronger and more resilient downtown Lafayette.
