Emergency declaration may help Morgan City pay some flood-related bills

Morgan City declared a city emergency after all.

The City Council voted unanimously at a special meeting Monday night to declare an emergency, even though most of the news earlier in the day made the rising water seem less threatening than it was last week.

The issue, said Mayor Frank “Boo” Grizzaffi, is repayment of money the city government has already put out. The declaration puts in motion a process that city officials hope will lead to a federal disaster declaration and federal reimbursement of flood-related expenses.

Other cities were able to be placed under an emergency declaration by their mayors, Grizzaffi said, pending later council approval. But he said Morgan City’s charter appears to require an ordinance. That’s why he called Monday’s special meeting, which lasted only about 10 minutes.

Grizzaffi said the expenses so far amount to a few thousand dollars. The city is likely to be required to replace some seals on the floodgates. Other city efforts helped provide sand for the National Guard to build a 2-mile levee around Avoca Island, and city workers filled and delivered 2,000 sandbags to waterlogged Stephensville over the weekend.

“It would be tough to give Morgan City taxpayers’ money for a fight to protect our neighbors,” Grizzaffi said after the meeting.

Council members Timmy T Hymel, Barry Dufrene, Ron Bias, James Fontenot and Louis J. Tamporello Jr. voted for the emergency ordinance.

Earlier Monday, the Corps of Engineers announced that it probably won’t open the Morganza Spillway. Without the extra flow from Morganza, the Atchafalaya at Morgan City is likely to crest at about 8 feet Jan. 23. That’s 2 feet above the nominal flood stage, and about a foot above the point at which buildings inside the flood wall begin to flood.