Dan's Hurricane Log - Dan's 3rd trip
For those of you visiting for the first time please scroll down and read the earlier stories of my trips to hurricane ravages southwest Louisiana first. Thank you!
Just before Christmas 2005, we once again returned to southwest Louisiana. It was a bittersweet trip. Had collected more fire department t-shirts and had purchased over two dozen reflective safety jackets for the firefighters of south Cameron Parish. I carried the t-shirts as my luggage allotment on my Southwest airline flight. The jackets were shipped with UPS. I purchased the jackets in Reno, at cost, through a friend.
Upon our arrival at "mamma's" house (everybody has a mama in the south) I found several boxes of jackets on the porch. The next day I took a drive down to Cameron to meet up with my contact, Dorothy.
To get into lower Cameron Parish is no easy task. Cameron is still (three months later) under mandatory evacuation. Other than the road system, there is very little infrastructure in the parish. Electricity is mostly re-connected, water works some places, but there are very little sewer treatment systems.
The road into the area is guarded by members of "BlackWater" security. BlackWater is not you average security service. Most of their members have police or military experience. You must have a legitimate reason to pass these hombres.
The speed limit past this point is 45. If you go 46 you will be ticketed. The sheriff of Cameron Parish has this strictly enforced. This is the south.
I drove down past what is left of Creole. Creole is a settlement of about 1,500. From what I saw there is not one undamaged structure in this town. I turn right and head for the coast. I immediately pass an empty lot that was once my Farm Bureau insurance office; my agent has moved herself and her business to a trailer back at Boon's Corner.
Things haven't changed much in the three months since Rita came to visit. The bodies that floated away from their "final resting places" have been mostly accounted for.
The debris has been picked up from the road. The folks are still living out of the Parish. The only folks "living" in the south part of the parish are rescue workers. The homes are all either gone or badly damaged. As you drive the roads you see many houses that are not where they belong. During the storm they just up and floated somewhere else.
No rebuilding has commenced, three months after the storm.
I met up with Dorothy at Camp Cameron. I visited the yurt like tent that she, her husband and a dozen or so of her close friends were living in. It was real cozy. A dozen cots lined up on both sides of the outer walls. Each person had enough room to squeeze between his/her neighbor. There was enough room for a small suitcase at the end of each "bed". It was tight.
I handed over my two boxes and headed out. I took the long way home. I traveled through the county seat, also called Cameron. The County office building still stood. It was built to take a storm. It was made of solid concrete.
I crossed the ferry and headed west, towards Holly Beach.
I arrived at what I thought was Holly Beach. It was Holly Beach, only I missed the first turn. There were no landmarks, no homes. There were only pilings sticking out of the sand and a road grid.
I am surprised at the lack of progress. I am equally surprised at the inequity of the aid. Areas that really don't need much are well cared for; areas that need help aren't getting any.
FEMA is a giant bureaucracy. Disaster services are manned by 1) people who want to help, 2) bureaucrats who don't care 3) fill in here
Many FEMA disaster workers are retired folks. Some do a great job, some don't. The ones who don't do their jobs grind everything to a halt. The FEMA workers who do their jobs are very frustrated. There are folks who are still living in cars, lean-toos and tents. They have gotten almost zero help. This is America, the leader of the free nations. Why can't these people get the aid that they need FEMA?
In my own experience (I lost my home here also). I called the FEMA phone line. I called at 5 AM as the phones are clogged all day. I answered 30 minutes worth of questions. I needed to "register my loss". After that short interview I was told that, "the program says that you are not eligible for aid". I wasn't registering for any aid, I was registering the loss of my house.
FEMA did do a good job of hiring "contractors" to clean up the debris on the roads. The do not clean up the entire county. The do clean up the majority of the trash within about ten feet of the road. The problem that goes along with this is that some (a few) of the employees of these contractors have a problem differentiating between what is obviously trash and what are the remaining possessions of hurricane victims. My friend Ron caught two guys with a pickup load of his newly purchased lumber. He needed it moved anyway. I had two guys drive into my place, looking around. I went out to greet them. They had their windows up and almost ran me over. We grabbed their license number. As my place is a half mile off of the road there is no reason for them to have driven up my drive, unless they were casing my house. It would have been a good time to "shoot at a snake", just to let them know that, " we don't cotton to this" in my neighborhood.
Why did my friend Phill and I do what we did? The frustration level that we experienced by trying to go through official channels was just too much. All we heard was, "don't go". We were told that FEMA was organizing aid and that they were going to do a good job. What we saw was quite the contrary. Like I stated above, there are a lot of folks doing a lot of good. There are a lot of folks taking advantage of their jobs and the situation also. We wanted to do good (within out means) without outside meddling. Looking back, it was a good decision.
Just before Christmas 2005, we once again returned to southwest Louisiana. It was a bittersweet trip. Had collected more fire department t-shirts and had purchased over two dozen reflective safety jackets for the firefighters of south Cameron Parish. I carried the t-shirts as my luggage allotment on my Southwest airline flight. The jackets were shipped with UPS. I purchased the jackets in Reno, at cost, through a friend.
Upon our arrival at "mamma's" house (everybody has a mama in the south) I found several boxes of jackets on the porch. The next day I took a drive down to Cameron to meet up with my contact, Dorothy.
To get into lower Cameron Parish is no easy task. Cameron is still (three months later) under mandatory evacuation. Other than the road system, there is very little infrastructure in the parish. Electricity is mostly re-connected, water works some places, but there are very little sewer treatment systems.
The road into the area is guarded by members of "BlackWater" security. BlackWater is not you average security service. Most of their members have police or military experience. You must have a legitimate reason to pass these hombres.
The speed limit past this point is 45. If you go 46 you will be ticketed. The sheriff of Cameron Parish has this strictly enforced. This is the south.
I drove down past what is left of Creole. Creole is a settlement of about 1,500. From what I saw there is not one undamaged structure in this town. I turn right and head for the coast. I immediately pass an empty lot that was once my Farm Bureau insurance office; my agent has moved herself and her business to a trailer back at Boon's Corner.
Things haven't changed much in the three months since Rita came to visit. The bodies that floated away from their "final resting places" have been mostly accounted for.
The debris has been picked up from the road. The folks are still living out of the Parish. The only folks "living" in the south part of the parish are rescue workers. The homes are all either gone or badly damaged. As you drive the roads you see many houses that are not where they belong. During the storm they just up and floated somewhere else.
No rebuilding has commenced, three months after the storm.
I met up with Dorothy at Camp Cameron. I visited the yurt like tent that she, her husband and a dozen or so of her close friends were living in. It was real cozy. A dozen cots lined up on both sides of the outer walls. Each person had enough room to squeeze between his/her neighbor. There was enough room for a small suitcase at the end of each "bed". It was tight.
I handed over my two boxes and headed out. I took the long way home. I traveled through the county seat, also called Cameron. The County office building still stood. It was built to take a storm. It was made of solid concrete.
I crossed the ferry and headed west, towards Holly Beach.
I arrived at what I thought was Holly Beach. It was Holly Beach, only I missed the first turn. There were no landmarks, no homes. There were only pilings sticking out of the sand and a road grid.
I am surprised at the lack of progress. I am equally surprised at the inequity of the aid. Areas that really don't need much are well cared for; areas that need help aren't getting any.
FEMA is a giant bureaucracy. Disaster services are manned by 1) people who want to help, 2) bureaucrats who don't care 3) fill in here
Many FEMA disaster workers are retired folks. Some do a great job, some don't. The ones who don't do their jobs grind everything to a halt. The FEMA workers who do their jobs are very frustrated. There are folks who are still living in cars, lean-toos and tents. They have gotten almost zero help. This is America, the leader of the free nations. Why can't these people get the aid that they need FEMA?
In my own experience (I lost my home here also). I called the FEMA phone line. I called at 5 AM as the phones are clogged all day. I answered 30 minutes worth of questions. I needed to "register my loss". After that short interview I was told that, "the program says that you are not eligible for aid". I wasn't registering for any aid, I was registering the loss of my house.
FEMA did do a good job of hiring "contractors" to clean up the debris on the roads. The do not clean up the entire county. The do clean up the majority of the trash within about ten feet of the road. The problem that goes along with this is that some (a few) of the employees of these contractors have a problem differentiating between what is obviously trash and what are the remaining possessions of hurricane victims. My friend Ron caught two guys with a pickup load of his newly purchased lumber. He needed it moved anyway. I had two guys drive into my place, looking around. I went out to greet them. They had their windows up and almost ran me over. We grabbed their license number. As my place is a half mile off of the road there is no reason for them to have driven up my drive, unless they were casing my house. It would have been a good time to "shoot at a snake", just to let them know that, " we don't cotton to this" in my neighborhood.
Why did my friend Phill and I do what we did? The frustration level that we experienced by trying to go through official channels was just too much. All we heard was, "don't go". We were told that FEMA was organizing aid and that they were going to do a good job. What we saw was quite the contrary. Like I stated above, there are a lot of folks doing a lot of good. There are a lot of folks taking advantage of their jobs and the situation also. We wanted to do good (within out means) without outside meddling. Looking back, it was a good decision.
posted by nevadadan | 5:11 AM
