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Lake Charles, LA
June, 2009
Restoring The Lakefront
FEMA has obligated more than $13 million
to help Lake Charles rebuild after
Hurricanes Rita and Ike. Part of the
funding went towards restoring the city's
Lakefront Promenade area.
Rita was a storm of wind, and Ike was a
storm of water. Both of them impacted the
area significantly.
The promenade area was hit pretty hard
and of course the major damage from Rita
was caused by the wind. And you could go
throughout the community and there was
extensive damage due to falling trees and
other structural damage that was caused.
The promenade area, this is a very
important part of our community, part of
the lakefront. It's the area that most
people identify with. This promenade
project that we're kicking off today
marks a major remodeling if you will, as
far as the whole lakefront, seawall area
is concerned.
The city has been able to work well with
FEMA on a variety of projects. It's been
a long time coming, but we've been able
to work through a lot of issues and we're
starting to see things coming together.
The 9/11 memorial is the memorial that we
built right before Hurricane Rita,
actually dedicated that memorial right
before Hurricane Rita. And because of the
storm surge, the pumping system for the
reflecting pool and the other improvements
was severely damaged. FEMA monies were
made available to us to help
rehabilitate that.
The PPG fountain was also damaged as a
result of the storm surge. Again you
look at the lake right now and everything
looks fine, but that storm surge came
through here, 12 feet with Rita, 13 and a
half feet with Hurricane Ike, put the
lake up over that railing. The flooding
that was caused along this area, caused
significant damage to the infrastructure
of these facilities.
We're hoping that this year's hurricane
season is perhaps a little bit more milder.
We're prepared. After four years of
hurricanes, after going through 2 major
storms in the last four years, I think
it's safe to say our community is prepared.