BATON ROUGE - Over the weekend, Louisiana's Department of Children and Family Services announced that recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in 18 Louisiana parishes impacted by Hurricane Ida will receive automatic 55% replacement benefits.

The extra help, officials say, is in response to the volume of power outages that have affected at least half of their residents.

The 18 parishes approved for automatic SNAP replacement benefits are:

-Ascension 

-Assumption

-East Baton Rouge

-East Feliciana

-Jefferson

-Lafourche

-Livingston

-Orleans

-Plaquemines

-St. Bernard

-St. Charles

-St. Helena

-St. James

-St. John the Baptist

-St. Tammany

-Tangipahoa

-Terrebonne

-Washington

The benefits – 55% of each household’s monthly allotment for August – will automatically be loaded onto recipients’ SNAP EBT cards by September 11.

SNAP recipients in other impacted parishes who lost food purchased with SNAP benefits due to a power outage of 24 straight hours or more can request benefits by submitting a completed and signed SNAP 38 form to DCFS. 

Officials say the deadline for requesting replacements due to Hurricane Ida is September 28. They add that SNAP clients may need to provide documentation from their utility company verifying their power outage. This can take time so residents are advised to request their verification documents as soon as possible.

More information, including online and printable SNAP 38 forms, can be found at www.dcfs.la.gov/SNAPstorms.