BATON ROUGE - Saturday, Aug. 12, marks seven years since the flood of 2016 devastated people and ruined homes across Baton Rouge and the surrounding communities.

Now, slow progress is among the main complaint for those who endured the disaster.

Several feet water swamped Noel and Susan Hunt's 100-year-old family home that summer. 

"We were kind of in shock," Noel Hunt said. "We really didn't know what to do. We didn't think it would get that much water, and then we ended up with about four feet."

When the Hunt family returned to their home, they realized everything was destroyed.

"All of our pictures, all of our antiques, all of our clothes, all of my jewelry - Every single thing we lost," Susan Hunt said.

Noel Hunt is a member of Concerned Citizens for Drainage Improvement, and has spent many hours sitting through meetings about how to prevent another massive flood.

In June, US Rep. Garret Graves pushed along the Comite River Diversion Canal Project — a nearly $1 billion dollar project dating back to the 1960s to reduce flooding in Zachary, Central, and Watson.

"They're cleaning it out so the river will run a lot better now," Noel Hunt said. "It will flow much better, until we can get the diversion canal completed."

However, Hunt says his expectations for the diversion canal project are cautiously optimistic, as the completion date habitually moves further away.

"They told us we were going to have it fixed at the end of 2021," he said. "It was not. They told us 2022. It was not. Now its the end of 2025 before it's going to be built."