BATON ROUGE - The governor announced an expansive flood restoration program that could buyout flood-prone homes and elevate others.

Area parishes will share hundreds of millions of dollars to complete projects.  East Baton Rouge gets the bulk of the money, followed by Livingston and Ascension Parishes.  Details of the programs were revealed at a news conference with the governor Wednesday.

Other parishes splitting money include East and West Feliciana, St. Helena, Pointe Coupee, Iberville and West Baton Rouge. 

Properties that have repeatedly flooded will be bought out, the governor said.  Some money will also be used to elevate homes and pay for drainage projects, though the focus will not be on elevating homes but rather on setting up better drainage paths to move flood water out of areas more efficiently. 

The money will not be able to put toward the Comite River Diversion Project, though, since the money allocated for the flood mitigation projects is not tied to the federal agencies regulating the construction of the long-delayed diversion project across northern parts of East Baton Rouge Parish.

Parishes will work with the state emergency preparedness office to determine which projects will be funded. 

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