LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) – The Plantation neighborhood in Lafayette is no stranger to flooding.

The neighborhood has flooded multiples times recently, including August 2016 and the most recent flooding event on November 1st. Although both were heavy rain events, residents of the community say they have had close calls with flooding on multiple occasions during the past year.

Long-time residents say flooding of this magnitude wasn’t a problem years ago and blame a failing levee system and recent construction in the area.

“Before all this construction was here, we hardly ever flooded and if we did flood in the street it would drain right away,” says a long-time resident.

“We have the Hamilton property over there, we have the levee here, we have construction there–I understand the Hamilton property is getting ready to put some businesses right there and a bank and all that water flows into this levee from everybody,” continues the resident.

Michelle John owns property in the area and says when she purchased her property years ago it was not even in a flood zone.

“I’m not an engineer nor a hydrologist but something has changed,” says John.

Those in the area have reached out to the city but say more needs to be done.

“We’ve had meetings with our council-woman Nanette Cook who is very helpful and tries to stay on top of it, but the rest of the city including Mr. Robideaux needs to have something done faster than what they’re doing,” adds the long-time resident.

These residents say the levee is in desperate need of maintenance and the pumps brought out by the city haven’t been helpful, especially in the flooding on November 1st.

“Our understanding is that the secondary pump was not functioning, so this very well could have been prevented,” adds John.

This neighborhood hopes that with a renewed effort towards improving drainage in the city of Lafayette, their community will finally get some relief.

We reached out to the Lafayette Consolidated Government for comment on this story but were not able to get a response at this time.