As Hurricane Ida bore down on Louisiana Sunday, bringing unprecedented forceful winds and pounding rain to the state, the storm's swift march inland evoked anxiety and exhaustion in the area east of Baton Rouge still recovering from devastating flooding five years ago.
Livingston Parish was all but fully inundated when a freak rain storm dropped more than 20 inches of rain on the capital region over three days in 2016. On Sunday, residents prepared for low-lying areas to flood again, and for Ida's possible 100 mph winds to topple power lines, damage homes and cut off electricity to places where some people are still rebuilding from past disasters.
Forecasters on Sunday afternoon predicted Ida's eye would pass directly over Livingston Parish at a point near Walker.
"It's simultaneously terrifying and the most boring thing on earth," John Cavalier, who owns a bookstore in Denham Springs' historic district, said on Sunday morning, as early rain bands sent water streaming down the street outside his shop.
"You're just waiting for bad news," he added.
Each time a storm approaches Baton Rouge now, 2016's floods serve as a kind of barometer for residents of the rural-suburban parish east of Louisiana's capital for potential destruction. A barely-moving rainstorm parked itself over the capital region in August of that year, dropping up to 30 inches of water on some areas.
"You could take a boat all the way from my house to Denham Springs," said Robert Burns, a Central resident whose home took on 24 inches of water in the '16 flood.
Anxiety, fear, and resignation residents expressed on Sunday as Ida swirled in brought back memories of the destruction wrought by the previous storm.
"Every time the weather channel or the news starts talking about rain events — period — you get this sinking feeling in your gut," Livingston Parish President Layton Ricks said. "It's emotional, because of what we went through out here."
Officials are hopeful that the storm's powerful winds will move north swiftly enough to prevent the same amount of rainfall that drenched the parish in 2016. Still, low-lying shoreline communities by Lake Maurepas are expected to flood in the coming hours, Ricks said, as the storm pushes the water inland.
As hurricane Ida bears down on southeastern Louisiana Sunday, residents should prepare for delays in emergency response times, Baton Rouge Fir…
Northern Livingston will be at risk of flooding in the days ahead if waterways that originate in Mississippi swell and spill into the bayous.
"While we may not get as much rain from this event that we got in the 2016 flood, we're going to get a lot of water that's going to from the storm surge is going to back up," Ricks said. "So we know we're going to have some flooding in low lying areas."
Ida's record winds clocked in at 150 mph as the storm touched down on the Louisiana Coast at 11:55 a.m. Sunday. With the eye of the storm set to pass over Walker, residents bracing for flooding also worried about damage of a different kind: wind.
One man strapped an all-terrain vehicle to the interior of a shed on Florida Boulevard between Walker and Livingston. Others rushed Sunday morning to board up windows and buy last-minute provisions from the few purveyors still open, like Jimbo's Corner in Denham Springs.
Hurricane Ida slammed into the Baton Rouge area Sunday as one of the strongest storms in a century.
"It's going to be bad," Livingston Parish Sheriff's Deputy Randy Lipscomb said as he stopped during a lull in early rainfall at one of few gas stations on U.S. 190 still stocked with fuel to fill his truck.
Walker resident Sarah Pasqua got lucky in 2016, when her house escaped the flood waters.
"I knock on wood when I say that," she said. "A lot of people who had bad flood damage in '16 still have PTSD over that."
As Hurricane Ida spiraled north and officials prepared to send teams to rescue people and clean up roads, Ricks urged residents to seek shelter immediately if they had not done so by Sunday afternoon.