MORGAN CITY — Cleanup work from this year’s high water event is ongoing and damage wrought by the high water may last through the summer.

Mayor Tim Matte told the city council Tuesday that all jumbo sandbags and flood protection baskets on La. 70 and at Lake End Park have been removed but more clean-up remains in these areas.

City crews currently are removing flood protection baskets behind homes on Lake Palourde Drive in Lakeside, while those nearby on Justa Street, Auburn Subdivision and Siracusaville levees will remain in place for awhile.

However, he said they would be removed when the city is ready to rehab them, both in accordance with needs identified in the city’s Federal Emergency Management Agency flood maps as well as because of possible damage suffered when the baskets were installed. That work will be done in coordination with St. Mary Parish Gravity Drainage District 2.

They won’t be removed, though, until the city is ready to begin those repairs.

As for the flood protection baskets, they already have been worn because they were used in previous activities before the flood fight, and city officials were instructed to discard them, Matte said.

“That’s why you see the baskets piled up,” he said.

The mayor said the sand and dirt the city used in the flood fight would primarily be used at Lake End Parkway.

“There’s no issue with where to put it, it’s just a matter of loading it up and getting it out there,” he said.

Matte also reported that all floodgates in Morgan City are open except the Freret Street entrance because the city officials want to restrict access to the dock, which was damaged during the high water.

Pending an engineer’s evaluation, parts of it may be closed to the public, possibly as late as September when locals gather on it for the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival’s Blessing of the Fleet.

Further east in Bayou Chene, the mayor said water still is 2 feet lower on the protected than the unprotected side at the site of the barge site. However, some water has been allowed to access these backwater areas because sandbags have been removed in nearby Tabor Canal and the rocks at the barge site have begun to settle.

Matte said the St. Mary Parish Levee District estimates work to remove the barge will begin by July 5, first with the rocks and sheet-piling and then after, the barge.

He also said restoration work is ongoing on Avoca Island.

During his report, Matte thanked city employees as well as the many other volunteers, law enforcement officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for their work.