PRAIRIEVILLE- Crews cut a 40-foot section of Alligator Bayou Road Tuesday, in an effort to relieve rising water in the Spanish Lake Basin area.

Earlier this week, pumps were set up and working at the Ascension and Iberville Parish line to try and drain the basin to give residents in Prairieville and St. Gabriel relief.  Iberville Parish Officials tell WBRZ, each pump is capable of pumping 50,000 gallons of water per minute. Our calculations show that you could fill up an Olympic Size Swimming Pool with all of that water ever six minutes.

Iberville Parish Councilman Bart Morgan and Parish President Mitch Ourso have been working closely together to help residents and try to get that water out of the basin. The real relief could be seen starting Tuesday as water started flowing over the cut section of highway.  It will allow the basin to drain continuously without the help of the pumps.

"We have three to five feet of water in some houses," Morgan said "Some of them, they are sandbagging and have three to four people trying to pump it out."

The pumps that are being used to get the water out of the basin are the same pumps that were used during Hurricane Katrina to pump the City of New Orleans dry. 

Meanwhile, we've learned there's significant damage in St. Gabriel. At least 60 homes are flooded and the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women has anywhere between eight inches of water to three feet of water in some places.

Currently, the Department of Corrections is coming up with a plan to reopen the Jetson Center for Youth in Zachary. Some of the females that were evacuated out of LCIW will be transferred to Jetson. According to DOC Officials, it could take anywhere between four to eight months before the females are returned to the facility due to all of the damage and the water that is still inside the building.