SLIDELL, La. — Tropical Storm Claudette drenched Slidell as it pushed east last night.
Cars struggled to get through submerged streets, some of them plummeting into ditches.
A white car on Old River Road was stuck in a ditch after trying to make its way down the street, causing a long line of traffic for local residents.
“We get real bad rain or a little bit of flooding. The bayou backs up a little bit and crosses the road, and people don’t know that it gets really deep in a couple of sections where it dips. We’ve been asking the parish for several years now, probably ten or fifteen, to try to remedy it because this is our only way in or out,” said Jeff Corbin, a Slidell resident stuck in the traffic.
Just around the corner, in the French Branch neighborhood, at least three houses are flooded.
“I’ve got about two feet of water in the house, maybe a foot and a half, but about two feet. All the cabinets, all the doors are warped, all the flooring is toast. We’re pulling all that stuff up now,” said Slidell resident Danny Gonzales.
Gonzales’s next door neighbor is also cleaning up and inspecting damage from the storm.
“On the floor ,there was water everywhere. We got up, and the water was just pouring through the windows, the doors. We had about a foot of water throughout the entire house, so there’s a lot of damage,” said Raquel Henshaw.
According to National Weather Service, Slidell received more than ten inches of rain.
The flooding is a major concern to locals, who are worried about what the rest of hurricane season could look like.
St. Tammany Parish officials are urging residents to avoid any flooded streets in the parish.