ST. MARTIN PARISH — Construction is underway on a $12 million preservation project along a 12-mile stretch of Cataboula Highway (Louisiana Highway 96) in St. Martin Parish. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development says the state-funded project aims to extend the life of the roadway through a mix of patching, milling, asphalt overlay, and drainage improvements.
The work is scheduled to take place Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., weather permitting. Officials say intermittent lane closures will be required as crews make progress, and a full road closure will occur later in the project once drainage replacement begins.
“This is a major inlet and outlet for a lot of cities coming that way, so it’s a highly used road. Everybody relies on this to be a good road in and out of the city,” said Samer Malahmeh, owner of Sam the Man Auto Repair, a business located along the highway.
Malahmeh has operated his auto repair shop along Cataboula Highway for three years and has seen the wear and tear on the roadway firsthand. He says rough pavement and flooding have become routine for drivers in the area, especially near the gas station where water often collects. “That part floods over there by the gas station and it’s so bad that it’s hard to leave the gas station—you have to slow down to leave,” he said.
DOTD Public Information Officer Deidra Druilhet says the goal of the project is to extend the life of the road before it reaches the point of full reconstruction. “We are doing work to help preserve the lifespan of the roadway, and the type of work that we’re doing when you sum it all up is what we call like a patch, mill, and overlay,” Druilhet said.
She adds that traffic volume and freight play a major role in the wear of roadways like Cataboula Highway. “So if you have a lot of that what we call heavy freight corridor that’s traveling along with that traffic, a lot of that will play a big part in the deterioration of a roadway over time,” she said.
For drivers like Malahmeh’s customers, the improvements can’t come soon enough. “Well, as long as the roads are like that, they’re gonna be bringing me more business,” he said. “But I’d rather have good roads and good suspension on people’s cars and just reliable transportation for people than to be having suspension issues, busted tires, and things like that.”
DOTD expects to complete the Cataboula Highway project by the fall of 2026. Druilhet says details about the full road closure and detour routes will be shared with the public once crews reach that phase of construction.
