Nearly four years after Hurricane Laura made landfall, the Beauregard Parish School Board still has recovery construction to complete.

Larry Hughes, disaster management consultant, ICF, Inc., gave a “snapshot, 3,000-foot view” update on the district’s hurricane recovery at the meeting Thursday, Aug. 8.

Currently, ICF has estimated about $15.6 million in damage to the district.

Insurance has paid approximately $12.1 million, leaving a gap – with deductibles and depreciation – of $3.5 million.

“The good news is that we have opportunities and the chance to cover a lot of that through FEMA,” he said. “We need to recover as much as we can and make the parish whole.”

All of the insurance funds have to be exhausted before BPSB can receive FEMA funds. Hughes said they anticipate recovering about $1.5 million from FEMA. After work is completed and claims are closed, they expect to recover another $1.7 million from insurance.

These figures do not count the ongoing construction at South Beauregard Upper Elementary and High School, he said.

South Beauregard Upper Elementary still needs to go through FEMA, and the damage report needs to be altered “up to where it needs to be.” To date, $8.5 million has been spent on that project, he said. There is an estimated $13.7 million left in construction, so long as construction costs stay the same.

Hughes explained that the initial damage assessments at the school by a previous consulting firm were not thorough, citing that only 17 line items worth of damages were listed for the whole complex. After ICF’s assessment, nearly 300 line items of damages were listed for just two buildings.

“There’s a whole lot more damages that weren’t captured initially.”

BPSB has received $694,000 from GOHSEP from their initial FEMA claim. Currently, two claims totaling $547,000 are in the auditing process.

Garrett Greene, District 3B, thanked Hughes for bringing the board up to speed.

“This seems like a never ending process,” he said. “This helps us to see that there has been progress.”