“We were extremely lucky, and we were blessed,” is the way Slidell Mayor Ben Morris describes the city after Hurricane Gustav roared through St. Tammany Parish earlier this week.

The storm, rated at one point as a Category 4 hurricane, hit Louisiana to the west of Slidell and as a Category 2 storm, which was lucky for the city.

Despite some flooding, downed trees and power outages for a couple of days, Morris said by Friday Slidell was “up and running.” According to the power company CLECO Web site, as of Friday morning, only 6 percent of the parish’s electric customers were still without power, and the lights are burning brightly in Slidell. This was in tune with Morris’ prediction that 95 percent of Slidell residents would have power by Friday.

Probably the biggest relief for Morris was the small number of flooded houses in the city.

Three years ago, the storm surge from Hurricane Katrina flooded Slidell from Oak Harbor Drive to Gause Boulevard with over 6 feet of water. Hundreds of homes and businesses were heavily damaged by flood waters. City authorities were worried the city would be on the east side of Gustav, which is traditionally the worst side of a hurricane, and they felt all the rain and strong storm surge would do similar damage to the many rebuilt homes and businesses in south Slidell.

Their worries were for naught. Though there was a lot of rain, and a storm surge, it did not do the damage caused by Katrina.

The surge did cause Palm Lake to rise, and flood the Palm Lake subdivision and the adjacent Camellia Drive, but the amount of damage was negligible compared to Katrina.

“Around 88 homes took water in Palm Lake, and 22 houses on Camellia Drive,” Morris said.

He said the city was prepared for Gustav. City police and public works employees were housed at the Public Operations Center on Bayou Road, ready to tackle any emergency or crisis that should occur during the storm.

“Our plan worked,” Morris said. “We were ready for whatever Gustav threw at us.”

His only regret was calling for a mandatory evacuation the day before Gustav made landfall.

“But we had no choice,” Morris said, adding the storm’s potential severity forced his hand on evacuation.

But Gustav was mostly a wind event, and Morris said city work crews were immediately out in the street cleaning up broken limbs and downed trees.

He said the power outage also shut down the city’s sewage system for awhile, but he wants to assure residents the sewage system is back in operation thanks to portable generators.

Also, the water system has been pronounced stable and the water is safe to drink, unlike some outlying subdivisions, which on Friday were still being instructed by the parish government to boil water before drinking it.

The city is doing so well in fact, Morris said he may send police officers to help out in Terrebonne Parish, which had much more hurricane damage than Slidell and St. Tammany Parish.

Coastal Waste Management has been picking up household garbage since Friday, and starting Monday will resume normal garbage collection, Morris said.

He said Coastal will not pick up trees and limbs blown down by the hurricane. The city will start picking up storm debris sometime next week, he said.

Morris is not resting on his laurels, though. Hurricane Ike is moved into the Caribbean this weekend. Weather forecasters are not sure where Ike will go, so the city of Slidell is keeping an eye on it.

“It’s too far out, and it is all speculation, but we are keeping an eye on it,” Morris said.