BATON ROUGE — State aid workers said Wednesday that a heavy volume of calls from people seeking to supplement their food stamp benefits after Hurricane Francine temporarily caused problems as the application period opened.

The Department of Children and Family Services says President Joe Biden's declaration of an emergency in southern Louisiana following the storm qualified benefits recipients for additional aid. The application for Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds opened Wednesday for recipients whose last names begin with a letter from A to G.

"Call volumes are typically high on the first day of a DSNAP operation, including people calling outside of their designated day (by last name)," DCFS spokeswoman Heidi Rogers Kinchen said.

There were moments when calls received a busy signal rather than entering a queue. Those who did get through had waits of various times.

"Our call center vendor has identified a potential local carrier issue (not an issue with the call center itself) that appears to be causing certain callers to receive a busy signal, and they are working to confirm the source of the problem so the issue can be resolved," Kinchen said.

DCFS said calls have an option to leave a callback number, and potential recipients should ensure they can receive calls from unknown numbers before going that route. The agency will try twice to call someone back.

Residents with names beginning H-M can call on Thursday and those from N-Z can call Friday. Overflow days are set for Monday and Tuesday, when anyone can call. The call center will close at 6 p.m., but those on hold at that time will still be served. The number to call is 888-LAHELPU (1-888-524-3578).

As of early afternoon Wednesday, DCFS had processed 2,100 applications. Kinchen said 1,596 applications were certified and 554 were rejected as being ineligible.

DSNAP aid is available for residents of Ascension, Assumption, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. James, St. John, St. Mary and Terrebonne parishes.

In addition to the DSNAP benefits, the federal disaster application also approved automatic SNAP replacement benefits in four parishes and automatic supplements in six parishes.

Residents in Assumption, Lafource, St. Mary and Terrebonne will automatically have 40 percent of their September benefits replaced if their initial benefits were received before the Sept. 11 landfall. These parishes had more than 50 percent of their residents without power for more than 24 hours, DCFS said, citing the state Public Service Commission.

For residents in Ascension, Assumption, Lafourche, St. John the Baptist, St. Mary, and Terrebonne parishes, SNAP recipients not already receiving maximum benefits will see their allotment automatically increase to the maximum for one month. Residents in St. Charles and St. James must apply for the supplement.