Tagged: Tangipahoa Parish

Tangipahoa Parish public schools students will see a day added to the school year to make up days missed because of Hurricane Isaac.

The Daily Star reports the School Board voted this past week to extend the school year through May 24. The last day for teachers will not change, Superintendent Mark Kolwe said.

Tangipahoa Parish officials are asking residents living south of Louisiana Highway 22 to voluntarily evacuate to higher ground because of Tropical Storm Isaac.

Parish President Gordon Burgess said the area is in south Tangipahoa, including the Manchac community where Lake Maurepas empties into Lake Pontchartrain.

The Tangipahoa Parish Council voted unanimously to award a $4.8 million contract to Bertucci Contracting Co. of Metairie to construct a stone breakwater designed to halt coastal erosion in the extreme northwestern corner of Lake Pontchartrain.

Parish engineer Maurice Jordan told The Advocate on Monday a 10,000-linear-foot wall can be constructed from an area just west of the mouth of the Tangipahoa River toward Pass Manchac, which empties into Lake Pontchartrain.

North Oaks Health System in Hammond is expanding its emergency room and doing other improvements in a $9.3 million project.

The Daily Star reports the work should be completed by spring 2013 at the facility in Tangipahoa Parish.

Senior Vice President and Operations Office Michael Watkins said design work took a year.

The 27,450-square-foot expansion of the emergency room will double its size and should relieve long wait times for patients, Watkins said.

Louisiana's health department says three new cases of West Nile virus infection have been confirmed in the state — including a potentially fatal case in Vernon Parish.

Two of the people who tested positive for the infection showed no symptoms. They were in Tangipahoa Parish.

But the Vernon Parish case involves what officials call "neuro-invasive" disease — the first such case in the state this year.

A neuroinvasive illness is severe and typically results in a swelling of the brain or spinal cord. It can cause brain damage or death.