Maurice has rare flood

Sunshine on Monday played a sharp contrast to a weekend that brought around 20 inches of rain to the Maurice area.
Monday did allow residents of the Village of Maurice to begin an unprecedented recovery process.
"This is an event that we have not seen since the early 1940s," Mayor Wayne Theriot said. "We are estimating that we had more than 20 inches of rain. We had areas flood that have never flooded."
Around two-feet of water covered most of the roads in the village. The bridge at the Lafayette-Vermilion parish line was covered, leading to a closure of U.S. Hwy. 167 going to Abbeville.
"They have opened it because the road has become passable," Theriot said Monday afternoon. "Before, it had about five to six feet of water on it."
"Again, we had flooding in places we never thought would flood," Theriot said.
Maurice City Hall, Cecil Picard Elementary at Maurice and St. Alphonsus Catholic Church all took on water.
"We haven't been able to get in to fully address the damage at city hall," Theriot said.
The August Board of Aldermen meeting is scheduled for Wednesday. Theriot said, a decision will be made, likely Wednesday morning, if that meeting will still take place.
"Water started receding on Sunday," Theriot said. "It is allowing people to start recovering."
It may take a while, but that recovery will happen, Theriot stressed.
"We are going to buckle up and say a few prayers," Theriot said. "We thank God that there was no loss of life. These are material things that can be recovered. People are working together and this is a community effort.
"We will recover from this and we will be a lot stronger for having gone through it."