Levees hold, but power outages, damage linger Dispatch must keep improving diversity
Louisiana’s focus on repair to state’s infrastructure
They rode out the hurricane in a fort made of motel mattresses.
The Tyner family evacuated from
small, coastal Grand Isle six times in 2020.
When it came time to evacuate for Hurricane Ida, they packed their things and returned to the place they had sheltered during all those previous evacuations – The Galliano Inn, about 30 miles farther inland.
Ricky and Sarah Tyner sat in room 111 with their sons, 5-year-old Buck and 4year-old Scotty, the family’s three birds
and their dog, Huck.
And then the roof peeled off. The hurricane that came ashore Sunday as a Category 4 storm would leave four dead in two states and more than 1 million people without power. Some remote Louisiana areas are still waiting for rescue crews to make their way through floodwaters and debris.
A year ago, I wrote that newsrooms across the country are not as diverse as they should be, and that includes The Dispatch.
For too long, we haven’t reflected the communities we serve, and we haven’t been as transparent about this fact as we should have been.
After that column, Columbus leaders and Dispatch readers told us that we needed more Black journalists, more Asian and Latino journalists, and more diversity in our coverage.
I pledged we’d work to address those shortcomings.
The Columbus Dispatch and newsrooms across the USA TODAY Network made a commitment to increase the diversity of our staffing at USA TODAY and our 250 local daily publications to ensure that our journalism reflects this remarkably diverse country.
Census Bureau data show the Black population of our regional market of 3.4 million people is about 12%. About 4% of the full-time newsroom employees at The Dispatch, Dispatch Magazine Division and Thisweek Community News are Black, up from 2% last year.
Almost 4% of the market is Hispanic; we have just one Hispanic staff member, who is an editor. That is unchanged since last year. The Asian population in this market is 3.4%, and 2.9% of the newsroom is Asian, up from 1% last year.
About 3% of the market self-identifies as two or more races, compared with about 2% of our staff, which is unchanged from last year.
About 39% of our newsroom is female, up from 33% in 2020.
Clearly, we still have much work to
In New Orleans, many who recalled Hurricane Katrina’s devastation echoed the same thought: It could have been worse.
Small communities outside the city were hit hard by the storm.
Rebuilding them will take a long time.
‘It was vicious’
Among the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the state, Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc on coastal areas like Port Fourchon and Grand Isle. The storm was so strong that when it hit the coast, with sustained winds of nearly 150 mph and gusts of more than 172 mph, it reversed the flow of the Mississippi River. The storm came up fast.
When the winds picked up around 11 a.m. Sunday, the Tyner family hunkered down in their motel room.
“It was vicious,” 49-year-old Ricky Tyner said. “It’s about the most vicious wind I’ve seen with a hurricane.”
The family moved to a different room, where the boys stayed under a mattress fort with their mom. They were scared but “did great, considering,” she said.
“I’m looking back this morning and thinking we’re lucky to be alive,” Ricky Tyner said Monday. “But I never got scared yesterday.”
For those who did try to leave, most headed east and west of the storm, Louisiana Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson said.
All traffic, the bulk of which began about 6 a.m. Saturday, was cleared by 10 p.m., he said.
“I understand if you were in that traffic you might not have felt that way, but I’m very pleased with what we did,” Wilson said.
Fears of Katrina eased, but dangers remain in floodwaters
In New Orleans, the levees held. James Ackerson, a Lower Ninth Ward resident, saw his house washed two blocks down the street after Katrina breached the levees.
“This wasn’t nothing compared to Katrina,” he said. “I’ve got more confidence in the levees now than I have in the police. Now I know I can stay here.”
As Ida continued its trek into Mississippi, New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell
echoed the concerns of residents like Ackerson.
“It did not happen. We did not have another Katrina. And that’s something again we should all be grateful for,” she said.
Cantrell went on to say the widespread power outage would continue to cause problems for the city, and she urged evacuees not to return to the city until further notice.
As the worries of failed levees eased, the reality of life after a hurricane became more clear.
In Prairieville, outside Baton Rouge, residents looking for gas to power generators stood in long lines Monday.
Veillon’s, a gas station and store, sustained damage in the storm, but crucial systems – the pumps and the credit card machines – were operational. Word got around, locals said. The whole town seemed to be without electricity after the storm. Prairieville seemed to miss the water but not the strong winds.
Death toll rises as search continues
The storm was blamed for a highway collapse in Mississippi that killed two on Tuesday.
Also blamed on the storm: two deaths in Louisiana, including a person injured when a tree fell in Prairieville and later a driver who drowned in New Orleans. Gov. John Bel Edwards said at least 671 people had been rescued from floodwaters in Louisiana by Monday afternoon.
Hospitals have struggled in the aftermath.
In Terrebonne Parish, Terrebonne General Health System and Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center in Houma sustained catastrophic damage during Hurricane Ida. A makeshift hospital was set up Tuesday afternoon.
Patients from both Houma medical centers evacuated their patients to hospitals outside the area Monday. Ochsner St. Anne and Lady of the Sea hospitals in neighboring Lafourche Parish were also evacuated.
Terrebonne Emergency Preparedness Director Earl Eues urged residents to stay out of the parish until further notice because Terrebonne has limited medical services.
“Our hospitals are out of commission,” he said. “If you have a heart attack or cut your arm while chain-sawing or fall off a roof, we have very limited medical services for you.”
Experts also are worried about the spread of COVID-19.
Vaccination rates are low in the lowlying parishes, in some only about a third of the population, records show, while cases have surged to all-time highs.
Crowded shelters, delayed treatments and inundated hospitals and intensive care units make a recipe that puts under-vaccinated communities at dire risk for more infections, experts said.
“This is a pandemic tinderbox,” said pediatrician Irwin Redlener, founding director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness.
In Schriever, more than 80 miles northwest of Grand Isle and 20 miles north of Houma, some residents weren’t as worried for the future as their southern neighbors.
Eileen and Randy Lirette evacuated from their home in Terrebonne Parish, but only went about 10 minutes away from home in nearby Thibodaux.
“I love Louisiana,” Randy Lirette said. “I’ll stay here the rest of my life. A hurricane ain’t gonna drive me away.”
Coastal, bayou towns bear brunt of hurricane
Hurricane Ida’s storm surge topped levees in some low-lying areas including Lafitte, 30 miles south of New Orleans.
In Lafourche, evacuees were allowed back in Tuesday afternoon, but the Sheriff’s Office warned that they might want to wait, if they could.
“Please know there is no clean water access from Raceland to the south Lafourche area,” the Sheriff’s Office said.
“Your home may be severely damaged and uninhabitable.”
The residents of Kraemer, which has a population of just under 1,000, live along a few miles of land and swamp up against Lake Des Allemands.
Intense gusts ripped rooves off houses and sent so much rapidly rising water into the homes of the terrified residents who remained behind that some speculated the levee broke.
But Elton Hotard, who stayed in Kraemer throughout the hurricane, said the 12-foot storm surge just rolled “like a tidal wave” over the 9-foot levee holding back the lake.
At Pointe-aux-chenes Supermarket in Montegut, owners Alcee and Donna Dupre were cleaning when customers pulled up to the store. Donna Dupre let them in to buy snacks.
During the storm, the Dupres took shelter in their house in the back of the store.
They’ve lived in that house since 2002. Alcee Dupre said that the house is fine, just shingles missing.
“I never left before,” Dupre said. “But this was the worst ever.”
Contributing: Dan Copp, Emily Enfinger, Nicole Foy, Leigh Guidry, Kezia Setyawan, Ashley White, Andrew J. Yawn