Locals fear the Zika virus and mosquito repellents long ago disappeared from supermarket shelves. So far those fears may be unfounded. According to the Louisiana department of health, four new cases of Zika were reported this week, but all were contracted during travel to affected areas.
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“Our surveillance activities include working with hospitals and other healthcare providers who notify us if and when a possible Zika case is diagnosed,” said Frank Welch, who heads the state’s Zika response team. “We also work with mosquito control agencies throughout the state who conduct mosquito testing in areas of known human cases to determine if mosquitos in those areas are carrying the virus.”
The bigger threat comes from the West Nile virus, which struck the area a decade ago after Hurricane Katrina. Doctors are warning residents to watch out for symptoms: fever, headache, stiffness of the neck, shakiness.
Meanwhile state officials gathered at the capitol on Thursday to sort out how to pay for the emergency response, which costs the state millions of dollars per day, and will likely run into the hundreds of millions. The state was strapped for cash and considering a short-term loan before the storm, and lawmakers met to discuss moving ahead with it as soon as possible. Some of the costs will be absorbed by help from the federal government, which has declared 20 of the state’s 64 parishes to be major disaster sites. More than 60,000 people have registered for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).
According to local officials, who have pressed for years to build a diversionary canal near Baton Rouge, much of the calamity and cost could have been avoided. The canal project was blueprinted but has been delayed since the 1980s. Its proponents say it would have prevented at least a quarter of the flooding if the US Army Corps of Engineers had acted sooner.
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“We see it over and over again in government,” said US representative Garret Graves, who represents southern Louisiana. “We end up spending billions of dollars after, instead of millions before.”
The proposed canal would shunt floodwater from the Amite and Comite rivers to the much larger Mississippi river. The Mississppi swells in spring with runoff from northern states, but by summertime when storms and hurricanes swamp local rivers, it has capacity to absorb the overflow.
“Unfortunately we’ve had to go through 13 lives lost and tens of thousands of homes destroyed,” Graves said on Thursday. “Maybe now the bureaucracy at the Corps of Engineers will take action.”