In aftermath of hurricane, residents worry about help

LAKE CHARLES, LA. — In a matter of hours last week, Hurricane Laura tore through the tire shop Layla Winbush’s family started just under a year ago, reducing most of it to rubble and scattering hundreds of tires across the lot. The storm also damaged her home, which now reeks of mold.

Federal and state officials are now on the ground to help residents with home repairs and hotel stays. But Winbush said she feels alone, particularly after seeing a video of President Donald Trump, who visited the area Saturday, joking with Gulf Coast officials that they could sell copies of his signature for $10,000.

“We can’t depend on the president. We can’t depend on nobody,” she said. “We’ll just take what we have and get it done.”

As evacuated Lake Charles residents began returning home, many worried that they wouldn’t have enough support from the both the federal and state governments as they face a rebuilding process certain to take several months, if not longer.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Sunday warned that residents were in for a long recovery.

“We’re going to be working really, really hard on the power outages, on the water systems, on the housing,” he said at a news conference. “But none of this is going to be easy. It’s not going to happen as quickly as most people would like for sure.”

Crews were starting to take chain saws to fallen trees and patch roofs, but most homes in Lake Charles wrecked by the storm were still untouched. The Category 4 hurricane, which made landfall Thursday just south of Lake Charles near Cameron, Louisiana, before abating nearly 12 hours later, packed 150-mph winds and a storm surge that officials said was as high as 15 feet in some areas.

So far 18 deaths in Texas and Louisiana have been attributed to the storm; more than half of those people were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from the unsafe operation of generators.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency sent hundreds of workers to the region to help with search and rescue and other efforts. As of Sunday, more than 52,500 people had applied for FEMA assistance, and the agency had conducted over 200 home inspections and distributed more than $650,000 in assistance, said Tony Robinson, FEMA’s administrator for the region. The Louisiana National Guard, meanwhile, had handed out hundreds of thousands of bottles of water and meals and about 14,000 tarps, the governor said.

But the needs were substantial. In hard-hit Calcasieu Parish, some waited hours in line for tarps, water and other supplies at distribution sites, said parish spokesperson Tom Hoefer. The entire parish had been without power, and in many areas, including the parish seat of Lake Charles that’s home to more than 78,000 people, water had not been flowing from taps, he said. Several residents Sunday said the water supply was still intermittent.

GERALD HERBERT / AP Linda Smoot, who evacuated last week during Hurricane Laura in a pickup truck with eight others, reacts Sunday as they return to see their homes in Lake Charles, La., in the aftermath of the hurricane.