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.