On Sunday, people in Youngsville say they're fed up with drainage issues impacting their neighborhood streets.
Sarah Hollenbeck, a reporter with our sister station WFTS in Tampa, was there. You can follow her on Facebook here and on Twitter https://twitter.com/SarahHollenbeck .
She spoke with the mayor to find out what changes are in the works to keep residential streets from turning into rivers.
In the Sugar Ridge Development, stormwater runoff is a huge concern, but help is on the way.
The water was 16 inches in the street after Barry passed. It brings back bad memories for homeowners who lived through the historic flooding in 2016.
"Yeah it is frustrating. For me I have a car. I don't have a truck or anything like that so when the road does get water, I can't leave my house or I can't come home," said Justin Guidry.
But he says drainage in his neighborhood has improved.
"The drainage has gotten a little better. A little bit quicker," he tells us.
Back in 2016, that same area aw more than 22 inches of water clogging up storm drains and neighborhood streets.
Mayor Ken Ritter says many of these streets were built before the city raised drainage standards.
Since the 2016 flood, Youngsville has added retention ponds and stricter drainage regulations for new construction - which is important since its one of the fastest growing communities in Louisiana.
The city is also designing two new regional stormwater ponds.
"It'll bring all of the neighborhoods up to today's construction standards for stormwater. It will be taking all the stormwater runoff and those that can't be contained in the neighborhood ponds will be contained in the regional ponds," Ritter says.
In less than an hour, our crew watched as most of the stormwater drained from these streets, and neighbors tell us that's a great sign.
