Southwest Louisiana received a double whammy in 2016 in that twice — once in March and again in August — heavy rains led to widespread and intense flooding across the state.
Lake Charles and Calcasieu Parish escaped serious flooding both times, but our neighbors in Vinton, and parts of Jeff Davis, Allen, Beauregard, Cameron and Vernon parishes weren’t as lucky.
Rain-filled rivers rose over the banks damaging or destroying dozens of homes in those areas, as well as shuttering businesses and shutting down roads.
Gov. John Bel Edwards traveled to Merryville, Vinton and Niblett’s Bluff in March to access damages, using a helicopter to land on the football field at Vinton High School in order to tour the area.
“I’ve never been prouder to be governor of the state of Louisiana than I am now because I’ve seen people all over the state ... taking care of one another, being neighbors, the kind of neighbors we’re called to be in the Bible, as the example given to us by the Good Samaritan.”
During torrential rain storms in August, most of the roads in Jeff Davis were made impassable by heavy flooding, which led to a parishwide curfew and multiple rescues of residents from their homes.
Floodwaters came close to topping levees protecting Lake Arthur, but diligent work by the town’s residents — and volunteers from across the state — prevented widespread damage. For days, volunteers stacked sandbag after sandbag along the Mermentau River. Lake Arthur Mayor Robbie Bertrand said some 16,000 sandbags had been strategically placed throughout the town and an additional 800 sandbags were stored in trucks “ready to move” into any areas that may need shoring up.
In Welsh, nearly 20 homes were flooded and about 100 people evacuated — including members of Fire Chief John Hall’s own family — after the town received about 10-15 inches of rain over a four-day period.
Statewide, emergency officials said more than 4,958 homes were damaged.
The catastrophic flood was the worst natural disaster to strike the United States since Hurricane Sandy four years ago, the Red Cross said.
“We anticipate it will cost at least $30 million,” Brad Kieserman, the Red Cross’ vice president of disaster services operations and logistics, said in August.
Cuts to higher ed, TOPS hurt students
When the Louisiana Legislature failed to fully fund the TOPS scholarship program during its 2016 spring session, it put the financial burden on students and their parents, and nothing has happened since then to turn the situation around.
There were no Christmas stockings stuffed with TOPS money which means that, in the spring semester, for the first time since 1997, more than 51,000 university and college students will be picking up a major portion of their tuition tab.
It would have cost about $294 million for the 2016-17 school year to fully fund the program. Lawmakers allocated about $88 million less than that, a 30 percent cut.
The late oilman Patrick F. Taylor came up with the idea for TOPS in 1988 when he promised 183 students in a New Orleans middle school he would make sure they could attend college if they kept up their grades and stayed out of trouble. Taylor took the idea to the Legislature in 1989, which made the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students scholarships available for students who completed a core curriculum with a family annual income of $30,000 or less. About 1,280 students got scholarships when lawmakers appropriated $1.9 million to fund the program.
In 1997 TOPS became more widely available thanks to the efforts of former Gov. Mike Foster and then-state Rep. Charles R. McDonald of Bastrop. Students with a 2.5 grade-point average and a minimum ACT score of 19 qualified for the grants. Family income was no longer considered.
Through the years lawmakers have balked at most efforts to revise the requirements of the program, and its costs eventually reached $300 million annually. They also rejected the original law for TOPS that said when funds are short the number of applicants would be reduced based on academic merit.
Gov. John Bel Edwards said recently that despite the state facing a $313 million deficit from the last fiscal year and another major shortfall expected for the current year, no additional cuts will be made to TOPS.
But there was one change made recently that if approved by the Board of Regents in 2017 would require students to take 30 hours per academic year instead of 24 to qualify for TOPS. People can voice their dissent or approval at public meetings expected early in the new year.
Lawmakers could potentially revisit the TOPS program at their 2017 spring session and revise the program if they choose to go that route.
Vail guilty of murderfive decades later
More than five decades after Mary Horton Vail’s lifeless body was pulled out of the Calcasieu River, jurors on Aug. 12 found her husband, Felix Vail, guilty of her murder. The trial had lasted five days.
“Fifty-four years later, justice is being served,” said Calcasieu Parish District Attorney John DeRosier after the second-degree murder verdict was announced.
Mary Horton Vail was 22 years old and the mother of four-month old Bill Vail when her body was found on Oct. 30, 1962. The coroner at the time ruled the death an accidental drowning.
Felix Vail was arrested in 1962 in connection to her death, but the case was dropped after a grand jury declined to make a decision. In June 2013, he was indicted on the second degree murder charge.
Mary Horton Vail’s brother, Will Horton, called the verdict “phenomenal” but added that he had long ago “put all the hate and revenge” behind him.
Prosecutor Hugo Holland said the verdict was also for Sharon Hensley and Annette Craver Vail. Felix Vail was the last person to see Hensley, his girlfriend, and Annette Vail, his wife, alive before they disappeared in 1973 and 1984, respectively.
Mary Rose, mother of Annette Vail, said she was satisfied to see Vail being held accountable for “the three lives he took.”
DeRosier said the medical evidence was key, especially the testimonies of Dr. Michael Baden and Dr. Terry Welke, Calcasieu Parish coroner. Baden, a forensic pathologist, took the stand on the last day of the trial. He agreed with Welke’s assessment that Mary Horton Vail’s death was a homicide and that she was dead before she went into the water.
“My opinion is that Mary Vail died of traumatic asphyxiation,” Baden said.
He said she had been knocked unconscious and strangled with the scarf found around her neck. He said that the 4 inches of the scarf in her mouth was enough to suffocate her.
Holland noted the work done by the District Attorney’s Office and by Rose and Clarion-Ledger reporter Jerry Mitchell, whose investigation of Felix Vail’s links to the missing women led officials to reopen the case in 2013.
“I’m glad that these families could get justice,” Mitchell said.
He called the work an “interesting journey” and characterized it as one of the most emotional and intense cold cases he has ever worked on. Mitchell said that if the conviction stands, the Mary Horton Vail case would be the oldest cold case solved in the United States.
On Sept. 26, Felix Vail was sentenced to life in prison.
Work begins on LCVeterans Affairs clinic
After more than 13 years of delays, the effort to get a permanent Veterans Affairs clinic in Lake Charles took a huge step forward as officials broke ground on a 24,000-square-foot facility in late June.
The groundbreaking was welcome news after years of delays. Elected officials asked for a plan of action in March and sent a letter to Robert McDonald, VA secretary, criticizing the VA for the delays.
VA officials announced in April that it would move forward under the current contract to build the new outpatient clinic on a 4.5-acre site at 3601 Gerstner Memorial Parkway.
Dozens of local officials and veterans gathered at the site to celebrate the June groundbreaking. Jim Jackson, chairman of the Lake Charles Mayor’s Armed Forces Commission, said the event was “a blessed day for veterans.”
Peter Dancy, medical center director of the Alexandria VA Health Care System, said in November that construction on the clinic should wrap up by the summer, and it should open 90 days after that. The Greenwood Village, Colo.-based SDA Inc. is the clinic’s developer.
The clinic will have at least two primary care physicians and will provide dental and mental health care, along with services like X-ray, an optical shop and physical therapy.
Meanwhile, Dancy said roughly 2,000 patients are using the interim clinic at 814 W. McNeese St. since it opened November 2015.
A service known as Pick-Point was introduced at the clinic in October. It provides veterans with quicker access to prescription medication through a remote dispensing system.
The Pick-Point machine has about 90 prescription medicines that can treat symptoms, like high blood pressure, cough and cold. Paul Moreau, chief of pharmacy, said the medicine is dispensed through the machine once a pharmacist verifies it.
Dancy said he moved to install Pick-Point at the interim clinic instead of waiting for the permanent clinic to open.
Officials have said the service, Telehealth, could be introduced at the interim clinic soon. Telehealth provides patients with better access to VA providers.
VA officials also marked another milestone with the opening of the permanent clinic in Lafayette Nov. 14. The clinic measures 29,000 square feet and is expected to serve more than 8,000 area veterans, according to Dancy. It took seven years for the clinic to be finished.
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