KENNER, La. — Hurricane Francine had Kenner in its sights when the storm suddenly made a jog to the east as the eyewall passed over the Greater New Orleans area.
Kenner officials say the storm damaged more than 100 homes, and that number will likely increase as they complete their damage assessment.
Piles of debris are growing in front of people’s homes on Tulane Drive in the University City subdivision, one of the hardest-hit areas in the city.
The street backs up to the Duncan Canal, which overflowed its banks as Francine dumped about 10 inches of rain in a short period of time.
“Right at the last second, if you look at the tracking maps, it was on the side of us, just west of Laplace, and all of a sudden, it darted east, and it was just north of us on Lake Pontchartrain, and it sat around here for good hour,” Kenner resident Sig Simpson said.
Some neighbors said sewer water also gushed into their homes during the flood.
Debbie Ohlsen said she got well over a foot of water in her house.
“It was just gushing in, just gushing in, through all the walls, everything,” Ohlsen said. It was unbelievable. You don’t know where to begin. What to do.”
Many homeowners in this north Kenner neighborhood just finished rebuilding and renovating their homes from the damage they received three years ago during Hurricane Ida.
“Luckily, the house was raised, but we have an outside building that we have, like little parties and stuff, and we raised the floor in that, but apparently that was not enough,” Stacy Simpson said. “We still wound up with four inches in the inside of that. We’re re-gutting that all over again.”
Police Chief Keith Conley said the water started receding around four a.m., but by then, the damage was done.
“We were told by the experts this as going to be an in and out storm, we were going to get punched and then it’s going to move on,” Conley said. “This was a 12-round fight with a heavyweight. This storm stayed over us dumping water on us for over an hour and a half. The information I’m getting is we got 10, maybe more inches that fell on us in a short time.”
For some the recovery process is annoying, frustrating and even a bit heartbreaking.
But they say this is their neighborhood, their street, and they like their neighbors. They enjoy living in the city of Kenner.
That’s why so many of them vow to once again cleanup and gut if they have and rebuild.
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