2 months after hurricanes struck, Louisiana residents still hurting
LAKE CHARLES, LA. » As southwest Louisiana recovers from the back-to-back hurricanes that hammered the region this year, signs of progress compete with lingering evidence of mass destruction. The fallen trees that carpeted neighborhoods have mostly been chopped up and hauled away, but the roofs they devoured are still covered in blue tarps. Piles of debris still line the roads.
Christy Monticello is thankful for the progress. She and her wife no longer have to go to the Civic Center just to get basics like drinking water or ice. But during her daily 45-minute commute from the trailer the family is living in to the hospital where she works as a respiratory therapist, she sees how much still needs to be done. Every day, another house demolished. So many tarps on those still standing.
“It’s almost overwhelming by the time you get home,” she said. “You do have to cry every once in a while just to let some emotions out.”
In a year dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, a deeply divisive election and a national reckoning on race, some worry that the hurricanes and their destruction have not gotten the kind of attention that normally leads to an outpouring of support.
Aid efforts after Laura and Delta have only garnered about 25% of the volunteers and donations as other storms affecting the region, such as 2005’s Hurricane Rita, said Denise Durel, president and CEO of the United Way of Southwest Louisiana.
Hurricane Laura roared ashore in southwestern Louisiana on Aug. 27 as a Category 4 storm just south of Lake Charles. On Oct. 9, recovering residents watched as Category 2 Delta swept in just a few miles away. What didn’t get scoured by Laura’s winds was swamped by Delta’s rains. Delta also ripped off the tarps that had gone up on roofs after Laura.
According to Louisiana government figures, nearly 47,000 homes were damaged by Hurricane Laura, with about 16,000 of those in need of major repairs. The bulk of those homes are in Calcasieu Parish, home to the state’s fifth-largest city, Lake Charles, with 80,000 residents. In the less-populated Cameron Parish on the Gulf of Mexico, many homes were simply erased by Laura.
Initial estimates from disaster modeling firm Karen Clark & Co. put the combined insured U. S. losses from Laura and Delta at nearly $10 billion.
“The first one was a big blow. The second one just was an insult,” Monticello said. In the early weeks after the first hurricane, she, her spouse, and three sons lived all together in the living room. They realized just how damaged the house was when Delta arrived and water started streaming in.
The Monticellos have since reached into their savings to buy a trailer and a truck to haul it so they have someplace to live while their house is being rebuilt.
There is a scarcity of just about everything: good contractors, storage containers, affordable apartments, staff for the businesses that are open. A Facebook group set up after Hurricane Laura has become a lifeline for struggling residents. A recent posting asked for advice on keeping campers warm in winter or keeping mice out of trailers. Another posting asked the question, “What does everyone need,” prompting a stream of answers such as, “Drywalling lessons and classes on how to handle an insurance claim” or “HOPE. Hope that things will get better.”
The biggest shortage is housing. Many residents are still living in hotels in Texas or other parts of Louisiana and commuting into town to oversee their rebuilding or entrusting the work to contractors from afar. Residents have bought trailers and parked them in their driveways. Others sleep in tents.
That’s what happened to Cristin Trahan and her family. Having weathered Laura in a house south of Lake Charles, she struggled to hold her emotions in check in front of her kids when she saw what had happened to her mobile home.
“It was several, several feet over, upside down, smashed,” she said.
Initial estimates from disaster modeling firm Karen Clark
& Co. put the combined insured U.S. losses from Laura and Delta at nearly $10 billion.