EAGLE LAKE — The handful of Eagle Lake residents toughing out the Mississippi River Flood of 2011 are keeping their options open.

“Would the last person leaving Eagle Lake please turn off the light?” a sign posted at the ramp to the mainline levee reads.

What is normally a bustling community of water-loving recreation seekers has dwindled to a ghost town. Streets are empty. Boat ramps normally edged with trucks and trailers are vacant. The only sound is the chirping of birds occasionally interrupted by a the slamming of a screen door by a gust of wind across the lake.

Power has been shut off since Thursday night due to major work on the mainline levee near Lake Albemarle, but it did not bother Tim Stennett, who has remained in his home with his wife Sheryl.

“We prepared for two weeks without electricity and (have) the ability to boat out if need be,” Stennett said Friday, enjoying a cool, overcast day around an outdoor table with neighbor Rodney Walters.

Stennett is a contractor who does most of his business around Eagle Lake. Since all of his clients left the area he has no work and didn’t see any reason to leave.

Walters, who has retired from the US Army Corps of Engineers, has been enjoying the newfound quiet in the neighborhood, but said he’s running out of stories to tell the few people who stayed.

On April 30, gates on the Muddy Bayou Control Structure were opened to relieve pressure on the Buck Chute Levee and filled Eagle Lake to 90 feet from its ideal level of 76.9 feet.

Chris Libbey said that raising the lake put most boat houses and piers under several feet of water but did not affect most of the homes and cabins.

The residents who stayed estimate that about 15 people remain in their Eagle Lake homes. Most of them get together every evening to cook and chat, mostly about the flooding.

Two sheriff’s deputies assigned to Eagle Lake at all times — the residents know them by name — get invited to the evening cook-outs. Libbey filled the deputies’ generator with gas Friday morning saying, “I didn’t want their gas to run out and them have to wake up just to fill it up.”

“We feel pretty safe here, we have deputies right down the street,” said Walters.

Stennett and Walters spent a day moving trash from the street to trash receptacles down the road after raccoons and dogs started tearing into it and spreading it around their Sea Island Drive neighborhood.

“Lots of people left garbage when they moved and no one was collecting it. So we spent a good day cleaning up and trucking it to dumpsters, “ Stennett said.

Will Hubert is one of the residents intent on staying in the town where he has lived his entire life. Hubert, 46, builds septic systems, cuts grass and maintains the Eagle Lake Water District, and decided to stay to make sure it is still in good condition when residents move back.

Hubert has taken precautions, though. He now carries a life jacket in his truck and knows where the high ground is in case of a catastrophic levee failure. Still, he says the day-to-day at Eagle Lake nearly business as usual for him.

“We’re still cutting grass around here like nothing happened,” he said from the seat of his 4-wheeler. “I moved my heavy equipment to Bovina and my wife moved to Edwards to stay with some friends.”

Hubert’s wife, Diane, works at the downtown branch of BancorpSouth. She moved when it became doubtful that she would be able to drive the levees to make her commute — a good choice. Since the crest the Mississippi Levee Board has closed the mainline and backwater levees to all non-emergency traffic.

Diane keeps in touch with her husband by phone, and echoed the sentiment of those who left because of the flood: “I’ll just be glad when I can get back home.”

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Staff writer Pamela Hitchins contributed to this report.