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Repeat street flooding on Southdowns street causing property damage

11 months 3 hours 11 minutes ago Thursday, January 25 2024 Jan 25, 2024 January 25, 2024 2:41 PM January 25, 2024 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - A street in the Southdowns neighborhood repeatedly floods and people living there are tired of it happening each time it rains.

"Nobody cares," said Emma Antilley.

It's a feeling shared by several people living on Aberdeen Avenue in Baton Rouge. The water sits on their street, sometimes for days after the rain has stopped. Antilley and her next door neighbor Linda Wunstel sat outside Thursday morning watching cars and trucks drive through the water pushing it further up their front yards.

"As you can see it'll get close to her house," said Antilley.

Wunstel has lived on Aberdeen Avenue for 40 years. Her street problems aren't anything new but she says it's about time something is done.

"We're trapped at our house, we can't get out," she said.

Antilley is new to the neighborhood. She moved in about a year and a half ago and says the street flooding was not disclosed to her when she purchased the home through a succession. it's more than just a nuisance - it's causing property damage. Because the water sits for so long it's causing several pier and beam homes to sink.

Antilley says she recently spent $5,000 installing French drainage in her back yard. They are tied to the street drainage. It's money she all but threw away since the water has no where to go and her yard has turned into a swamp.

"It's not going anywhere because the street's already flooding," said Antilley.

Susan Bueche lives across the street and can't get out of her driveway where the water is at least a foot deep.

"It prevents me from going out and doing stuff I need to do on days like this," said Bueche.

She has spent a lot of time talking to people about what needs to be done, so has Antilley.

"Everybody keeps saying, 'oh, the area has old pipes there's nothing we can really do about it,'" said Antilley.

Several houses down the street the road is clear of water. Wunstel says the city cleaned out the pipes in the area once in the past few years. The city said Thursday it plans to clean out the pipes again to get more information about what's happening underground.

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