BELLE RIVER -- Assumption Parish public works crews say that parts of the parish saw nearly a foot of rainfall in just a few hours on Thursday.

Despite this, crews also say that the work of their nearly 100 pumps around the parish was instrumental in preventing water from entering buildings.

"As far as we understand, there was no water taken on in buildings," Assumption Parish Maintenance Supervisor Brian Blankenship said.

By Friday, most of it had receded, and crews were working on the pumps to ensure they were up and running ahead of potentially typical showers and storms this weekend.

"We had a pump failure here yesterday. Our crews are working on that to facilitate, and they're installing a different pump in that facet so that we're back up and running in that area," Blankenship said.

 The lower Belle River area, particularly, saw a surge of rainfall.

"I've been a resident for 15 years here. This is the first time we've had this much rainfall at one time. Actually, it started at 1:00 yesterday morning," Assumption resident Shane Quebedeaux said.

Residents in that area say that the water did get close to their houses on Thursday.

"We never had it on the road, but it came up so quickly here, and these guys were working on this end and the water constantly coming up, and we had pumps running at the same time, but there was no way they could keep up with it, it was impossible," Quebedeaux said.

Crews installed a temporary pump in the lower Belle River area, but crews said it wasn't enough. They then installed a tractor pump, preventing water from entering nearby buildings.

"Installing pumps, repairing pumps, cleaning culverts, anything that required us to get the water away from our residents' homes," Blankenship said.

Crews say these few months are the busiest time of the year and require them to, in essence, wear a lot of hats.

"In my department, I have two. I have an assistant and an administrative assistant, so yeah, we don't have a big department, but we do the best we can, and we have support from the public works department that provides all their workforce," Assumption Parish Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Director Paul Leblanc said.