The Mayor of Henderson wants to warn residents of potential flooding of the Atchafalaya Basin that could happen in the coming weeks.  

Mayor Sherbin Collette says that flooding of the Atchafalaya Basin has been an issue in the past. He says that it’s something to watch every year. 

“It’s something for the people to just watch. I don’t want to scare anybody, but everybody over here is used to floods and like last year it came real, real high last year, and it was just borderline major flood stage so it’s something to watch and now we are at major flood stage. Right at it,” explained Collette. 

Mayor Collette says in the past couple of years, the Atchafalaya Basin has seen high water levels. 

“What I watch more for is Cairo Illinois. Cairo Illinois is where the Ohio River connects to the Mississippi. That’s how we judge the amount of water we potentially could have here,” said Collette. “Cairo Illinois is going to crest at 53 feet on the 20th of this month which is tomorrow. 53 feet is actually 13 feet above flood stage.  It’s right at the major flood level.” 

The General Manager of McGee’s, a swamp tour and adventure business in the Basin, says they see the water levels fluctuate.  

News 10 asked, “Any preparations that have taken place in order to prevent flooding?” 

Robert Donadieu said, “Not really any like preventative things. We will kind of prepare in the sense of we’ll kind of rearrange some of our parking maybe, but as far as that we kind of just move our docks up and down with the water levels there.”

Right now, the Atchafalaya Basin is a little over 16 feet. Collette says thirteen feet is above flood stage.