Dan's Hurricane and Recovery Log

Christmas 2010

2010-12-26T04:38:00.000-08:00

We had a housefull for Christmas eve supper (the noon meal) and for Christmas dinner (lunch). The day before that I spent with my two sisters and their three girls. I got what I wanted for Christmas, a home and time with family. These days I get to spend more quality time with friends and family. Life is good!

Winding down

2010-12-15T06:35:00.000-08:00

We are ready for the holidays. The house is 99% complete. The bank account is cleaned out(thanks mostly to Mr. Chris Smith). There is fishing and shrimping to be done; throwing the castnet is interesting. I have also been renewing my interest in single action shooting (we have plenty of room for that sort of thing out here). There is Single Action Shooting Society group that meets at the local shooting range also.

The theft of our items have been solved. Nothing has been recovered.

We still have our home in Reno. I have been attempting to refinance. It seems that we started this back in April, though they say June. It is now December and the bank is still not finished with whatever it is that they have to do. The latest closing date is mid January. I can't believe that it is taking this long. They have all of the information. Their latest request is for information that they had in their escrow account. I am spending days gathering information for them. It is a real pain. Lots of phone calls. My files have been passed through many hands. Requests are made. I run all over the countryside to gather paperwork. I send it in. Weeks pass and then additional requests are made.

Now the holidays are upon us. We have a birthday to celebrate, Christmas to celebrate. I get to see both of my step-sisters together the first time in thirty years. Mardi-Gras is just a few months away!

Finishing Up

2010-03-05T04:07:00.000-08:00

I have tried to invintory what is missing from our place. There was the obvious: 4 tires and rims, generator, Kamado smoker, air compressor, etc. But every time you go to look for something It is gone. Even the lightbulbs for the house are gone! All you can do is make a list and move on.

There are four and frequently five of us who are finishing up our home: Michael, Jackie, Bobby, Debbie and myself. We are finishing the painting, moving room to room. We have made our way from the back of the house to the front room, kitchen, and upstairs. The last step is to add a few coats of polyurathane to the floors. The stairway will be last. It will take a few days in itself.

We have seen much wildlife from our windows. Two deer eat in our yard almost daily. I have seen many great blue herons and other birds. There were otters swimming in our pond. The aligators and snakes must be hibernating so I have no worries for our little rat terrior.

We will be moving in as soon as the floors are done. Yahoo!

Letter to Bob

2010-02-11T03:08:00.000-08:00

Here is a letter that I sent to a friend that I was unable to mail. Bob is on his sailboat somewhere in Mexico. The letter sums up my arrival in Louisiana.

Bob,
I have travelled back to Louisiana.

Here's the bad news: After driving over 2200 miles I found a semi-truck stuck in my road. It was the only way in or out and I couldn't drive around it to get to my place. I was unable to unpack. I have met the owner of the truck later in the day. He was hiding it from his wife while he was out with his girlfriend. I had it towed that night. Of course it damaged my road. Had my "caretaker" Ron locked the gate it wouldn't have been there. Ron wasn't to be found.....and neither was my truck.

I looked around the place. I looked in Ron's trailer. It was a mess. I looked in the shop. It was a mess also. I noticed that my nice set of tires and wheels were missing. Inside the house it looked as if no work had been done since I had left several months ago.

On the second day I made an effort to find my truck. I had talked to my friend Lance and he suggested that I call the Sheriff's office to see if it was impounded. It was.....and so was Ron. I spent the remainder of the day getting my truck back from the tow yard (for $220) and going back for a closer look at my property.

In addition to finding my tires and wheels gone I found that I was missing my brand new air compressor, and some electric hand tools were gone from the house. I spent the remainder of the day filing a stolen property report with the Sheriff's department.

On the third day I drove up to Dallas to pick up my boat and to see our friend Ken and his wife. Everything was going great. I got the boat and Ken and I were eating some really good barbecue. I started to tell Ken about the barbecue that I was going to cook in at our new house.....when I realized that my beautiful Komodo barbecue had also been stolen.....

This is being written on the morning of the forth day. I am going to drive back to Lake Charles very (very) carefully!

The cost of being on your boat in Mexico: priceless!

Dan

Finished, at long last...well except we still have to finish the inside.

2010-01-19T05:10:00.000-08:00

Yahoo,
We are "substantially" finished with this house. It's been a rough time, but we made it. Our life savings are wiped out, but what the heck, it's only money!

The biggest hurdle to cross in the last year was not so reliable, honest or trustworthy Chris Jason Smith ( aka, Chris James Smith) of C. J. Smith's Custom Cabinets, a most misleading business name. I met Chris Smith on line in the spring ot 2008. He had a shop locally. I wanted to spend my money locally. We met up at Lowe's where he showed me a set of custom cabinets and told me that he would make me a better set of kitchen cabinets (with all the bells and whistles) for a slightly better price. I went and looked at another job that he had completed, with a contractor friend in tow. It looked like good work. He had a deal and I wrote him a deposit check as he promised me that he would have my new kitchen installed within six weeks. Six weeks came and went.

Mind you, every time I went to check on the progress of my house I had to travel over 2,000 miles. Over the next months, seasons, and year Chris Smith made many promises. He would call me very excited and ask me to come over to his shop to see the progress. The cabinets that he showed me looked great. He had more that he needed to do in my house. He wanted to make it his showplace. He wanted to complete the entire interior of the house. This included all cabinets made and installed, sheetrock, tape, texture, paint, all door and window trim, all flooring, bathroom cabinets, custom "California" style closets, shower installation, door, floor and ceiling trim (Crown moulding), wooden interior window shutters, a custom hutch in the kitchen, a bed frame and of course the kitchen. He was even going to make a miniature stage for "media room". But everything came with a large deposit.

During the winter of 2008/2009 I go see the so called "progress" on my house. There didn't seem to be much, if any. My good friend Ron noticed and the next thing I know we had a sheetrock party during the weekend. I was sick with a 104 temp., but we got the majority of it completed. Of course, this was sometime after I had paid Chris Smith over $6,000 to complete the sheetrock portion of the job. So spring of 2009 rolls around and Chris hammers in much of the unfinished hardwood that I had purchased. But he only installs the easy part of the job, I would call it the field. He does this before the messy job of sheetrocking is done. He left all of the detail work for "later"...much later. Over the next months Chris managed to get the kitchen and living room taped and textured (two whole rooms). This went on for several more months. And, of course Chris was always asking for more money all along the way.

After a while it got to be a joke, sort of a sick joke. Chris would fret over some miniscule detail (a small amount of oil got onn the wood floor) and he would use it as his excuses to do nothing. He kept telling me that he was "going to move into the house for a month and finish it". Several times he told me that. He was always asking for more money. The last big money that I sent him to complete the house with....he went out an bought himself a pick-up. Nice.

I asked a friend (a real good friend) to help Chris in his shop so he could finish my job. They worked on my project for weeks. Then Chris asked my friend to work on someone elses project, (without compensation, of course). The freind said no and Chris got mad.

Chris gets mad a lot. He gets mad over the smallest things. He blows up and says nasty evil things to everyone around (but never around the customer). He sent his girlfriend Sandra to tears on a regular basis. He struts around like a banty rooster and acts tough. Then a day or so later he acts like everything is fine.

Chris called me a lot also. He told me that I was one of his only "friends". He told me that he got depressed. He was crying on the phone. Then, usually, he would ask for more money.

I paid for helpers to try to move my house project along...to do the work that Chris should have done himself. That's Chris Smith's picture on the right. He even wears a tape measure to give the impression that he knows what he's doing! He was nice enough to have his girlfriend Sandra take this photo of him for me. Chris told me that Sandra loves him.

Finally, out of desperation I offered to pay additional money to Chris Smith, to make the actually get some work done in my house. I figured that this guy is so greedy that he will jump at the opportunity. He did.

Then a call comes from Big Ron. Big Ron tells me me that Chris offers to pay Ron to grout some tile. Ron says O.K. Next, Chris says to Big Ron, "and since your working for Dan be sure to charge him too". Ron was being honest when he called me and told me about Chris' offer, later that day.

The big day is upon us and Chris is going to deliver all of the materials that I had purchased. Some of the cabinets were dropped of in prior days. On this day Chris Jason Smith shows up without his girlfriend Sandra (who he is always with). Chris arrives late and gets out of his truck. He grabs his large toolbox; it looked so heavy that Big Ron offers to help, but Chris "has it handled". My guys notice that all of the finished materials are missing from the truck. Minutes later Chris is elsewhere and my guys need to move the big heavy toolbox. They went to move it and it was light as a feather, in fact it was empty! Imagine that.

While all of this is going on in Louisiana, I am in California driving towards the San Francisco bay area to move my elderly mother. My phone rings and I hear my friend telling me that Chris just "quit". I was driving so I let my buddy who was with me handle the calls from Chris. It all boiled down to this. Chris thought that he was the big joke on the jobsite (which was true at this point). Chris wanted even more money to finish the job that he was a year behind on and he had already been paid more than it was worth. He hadn't finished one portion of the job. He still had the materials that I had bought and refused to return them (I think that this is called stealing). He also refused to return my $3,200 wood engraving machine, which he later pawned. Chris called and attempted to throw Big Ron under the bus. Chris said that Big Ron was trying to cheat me. What a lame attempt; what a class act!

This guy told me for over a year (well over fifteen months) what a great Christian he was. All the while he was taking my money and taking me to the cleaners. I supported him for this entire time. He was living better than I was. I'll let others deal with C. J. Smith's Custom Cabinets. I think what we have here is called "Contractor Fraud". I am working with the authorities. Chris has a few surprises coming his way. But, the wheels of justice turn slowly. I lost tens of thousands of dollars, and over a year of my house rebuild time to that creep. I figure credit where credit's due. If this wasn't all true....I wouldn't put it into print! The truth hurts C. J. Smith! Let the light of day shine upon you and your shady underground operation.

Shady opertion? Here area a few things about how this guy operates. Here is what I learned after it was too late. Chris told me he has no valid driver's license. Something about the California DMV holding up paperwork. He drives a truck that he refuses to register. Either this tactic is to not have an attachable asset of maybe it is so he can just walk away, if he has an accident. I'm sure at this poing that there is no insurance on this vehicle. When the heat is on Sandra drives him in her car. He has no bank account. He cashed my checks at a check cashing place or he runs it through Sandra's bank account. He only "hires" people who are down on their luck and only pays in cash. He calls himself a businessman.

He told me that he spent my money while he was doing "other jobs" and that he needed to make more money to finish my job, bacause "that's the way it works".

So with that over, I called a recommended contractor. He finished most of the work that Chris was paid for. Most of the cabinet doors that Chris built didn't fit the frames that Chris built and many were missing altogether. The real cabinet man had to redo the entire kitchen. I had to pay for many items twice. What a nightmare. I have turned Chris over to a collection agency. Chances of collection are slim.

The smartest advice I got (after it was too late) was that if your contractor/tradesman can't afford to do the job with his own money, you should run away.

I will be enjoying our new place in just a few short weeks!

I will just have to work at my job for the rest of my life. Here's a link to my website, check it out: http://www.potteryequipment.com/

Hurricane Ike

2008-09-21T06:38:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Ike came ashore and did much damage in Cameron and south Calcasieu Parish. I have friend who lost her house and one who doesn't yet know. We lost many windows and storm shutters. Our outdoor kitchen was (again) trashed. Stinky marsh mud covers everything....but aside from that the new house is unfinished and intact.

I have cut all ties with my former contractor. A year to get the house to the sheetrock stage is too long. I have already paid him enough to build the entire house. I thought that he was an honorable person; I was mistaken. I'll have to deal with that aspect later. For now I have someone else finishing up. It is an expensive lesson that I will have to live with.

Flooded House? Here's what you can do to save your home.

2008-09-14T06:41:00.000-07:00

Below is the post that I sent to the hurricane section of http://www.craigslist.com/ It is what I learned from having my house flooded. If your house is flooded use this as a guide to saving your house. Don't wait for someone else to clean up your place, get busy! You will save yourself a lot of further damage if you can follow these steps right away.

House Flooded? Here's how to help yourself! < DanielLee > 09/13 14:31:58

I found that after returning to my flooded home in 2005 I didn't quite know what to do. Here is a list that I made up and followed. Feel free add to it. If you have a friend who was flooded please, please print this out and give it to them.

Turn off the power at the breaker box.

If you can locate a camera take lots of pictures. Be sure to take pictures of the outside of the house as well.

Wear rubber boots, playtex type gloves, and eye protection, if needed.

Clean out the fridge right away!

Get all of the ruined furniture to the road or in the front yard. Store good stuff elsewhere. Remove valuables!

Find a Squeegy or wide shovel.

Cut the drywall above the high water mark. Remove any drywall or paneling at least a foot above the high water mark.

Remove any wet insulation.

Get all of the wet stuff (insulation, drywall, and carpet) out of the house.

If you can find a butane heater open the windows and fire it up.

You should be able to drive a lot of moisture out of the windows before mold takes over.

Go to Sam's Club and buy something called Odo-Ban (a little goes a long way). It will kill the smell. Use only as directed! The sooner you do it the better!

These are all immediate repairs. Most can do it themselves.

Here's a few more tips: If your photos are all wet, keep them wet (for now) store them in water until you can dry them properly. Drying photos (behind glass or plastic photo album covers) will stick to anything that they dry to, which will ruin them.

Watch all contractors! Only deal with those who are reputible and established. There will be a lot of fly by night contractors fleeing to your area. If they can't afford to start without your money, chances are high that they will rip you off. Do not pay up front, like I did. My contractor came recommended by a friend. Now, I am tens of thousands of dollars over budget and don't even have the sheetrock up. It has been a year since my rebuild started. Don't get screwed....like I did!

And here is what I added to the post:

Generator Safety Tips < DanielLee > 09/14 07:06:05

Please remember that if you are running a generator or using a butane or propane heater to dry your house out follow these precautions: Operate any generator outside, in a well ventilated area. Well ventilated does not mean in the garage. If you are drying your house out with a butane or propane heater get it working that then get out of the house. Both devices give off poisonous carbon monoxide gas, that will kill you, if breathed in over a period of time. You cannot smell carbon monoxide gas. It will put you to sleep and then you will die.

Please be careful!

Good Luck to all!

Hurricane Ike hits Cameron and Lake Charles

2008-09-14T06:25:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Ike has now come and gone. I hope that the flood will have subsided enough so that someone can go and have a look at the Reon "camp" house. I know that I lost everything that was at ground level, including my shop. Everyone who I know is safe, though rattled. There was a lot of water that came in, more than hurricane Rita. I hope that everyone survives, but I know better.

What is happening with this world? There was a hurricane in the area around 1900, Audrey hit in 1957. Rita arrived after almost 50 years, in September 2005. Now, we have Gustav and Ike hit the area (a wide area) in September of 2008.

Hurricane Ike report. Here's what I know as of early Sunday morning.

Graywood rental houses:

Primrose: Report from renter that there are broken windows and that the storm shutters broke. The ocean came right to the front door (and we're 20 miles from the ocean), but didn't get inside. We likely lost all of our landscaping due to salt water.

Camellia: No report but I suspect no water as it is slightly higher than Primrose house. We likely lost all of out landscaping due to salt water

Black Bayou/Reon Road: Surrounded by many feet of water. I saw a picture of a neighbor's house that had three feet of water in the yard. The picture was taken over 12 hours before the actual storm arrived! I hope that we did not have over ten feet of flood waters or our new house would be flooded. The Black Bayou bridge is closed (to vehicles). I will call my friend Bobby's cousin (who is the bridge supervisor) for an update later this morning. But during Rita the motor burned out and it took a tug to open and close the bridge.

Friend Ron's house: Unknown. Ron is one mile south and right on the lake. His home is the first house at the south end of Deatonville and took the full force of the storm.

Friend Karen Thibodeaux's brand new house: Completely ruined and flooded, along with her brand new car.

Friend Dorothy Carter's new home in Creole: It is in the same situation as our Black Bayou/Reon Road house. The entire area is submerged.

The problem with this storm for our region was the high storm surge. The winds topped out about 90 miles per hour.

The Long Road Home

2008-08-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

Where do I start. It's indeed a long road home. The rebuild of our place is well under way: In November 2007 we "pulled" our building permit. In December the old house was demolished and the columns were poured for the new home. There's thirty of them. They are ten feet in the ground and twelve feet above ground. The frame for the entire house is glued and bolted to these columns and up goes the house. Only it goes slowly. It is now mid-august and the house is still not finished. But we successfully endured our first tropical storm (Eduoaurd).

I need the place finished very soon because we have plans to bring a group down from the Reno area to help others rebuild their homes.

For now you can head over to my photo site www.flickr.com/nevadadans and see the progress.

Two Years Minus One

2007-08-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

There have been a number of developments to keep up with.

We put up a gate that will keep all but the most determined out; at least it will keep their vehicles out. If they want to steal anything they will have to carry it over a thousand feet.

The LA Citizens suit is moving forward at a snails pace. I hope that there is some interest that will be included with their stalling tactics.

I took a real hard look at rebuilding verses starting over. Starting over looks like the wise move. I have purchased the plans for the Lowe's KC-1807 "Katrina Cottage" house. They are being looked at by a contractor who is putting some figures together. I will have more to report in the future.

Another year goes by......

2007-06-14T15:32:00.000-07:00

It has been over a year since I have written. The house on the bayou has been cleaned out, but it still sits in a condition of decay. I have a law suit filed against LA Citizens, like tens of thousands of others.

The house clean-out came as a result of numerous unwelcome visitors. There is no reason to leave anything there for them to steal. It's just better that way. The house is an empty shell. The grass still grows and must be cut. It is hard to do when you must live so far away.

I got one bid for the lifting of the house to the desired sixteen feet. It came in at well over $100,000. For that I will get a wrecked house on a new foundation. Somehow, it just doesn't seem worth it. The economics don't add up.

I was promoted at work shortly after the storm. The hours are greater and the money is better. The hours make our time here in Reno more difficult.

But there's hope. In just a few short years we will be moving down. We will have a place to live and the time to fix up the old place.

Dan's 4th Trip

2006-03-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

Note to readers: this log is publisher in reverse chronoligical order. The first entries are near the end of this page and the most recent entry is at the beginning. Please start your reading at the beginning of my story. Thank you, "Nevada Dan"

In early February I found myself on yet another airplane heading for Lake Charles. This time it was not for a for the usual reason. This trip was to take care of an impending problem. My camp was burglerized.

I found myself wondering why thieves would be going into an area devistated by a hurricane. Was it because stealing from those who had already lost from the storm was easier? Was it to help local folks raise money to help rebuild their own homes? Whatever the reason, the people who were stealing from hurricane victims must be of very low character. Essentially, they are dirty no good "looters".

I had an alarm system in the house, before the storm removed it from service. I thought that it was honorable of the alarm company, Interface Security, to call me and offer to discontinue my service. They called days after the storm. However, that all changed after they refused to quit charging me a monthly fee. Before they would stop charging me they racked up another $200 in fees. Interface Security is on my list on companies that chose to profit from the misery of others.

The plane landed in Houston, I rented a pick-up and drove the two and a half hours to Lake Charles. I stopped by my mother-in-law's and grabbed a sleeping bag. I drove through my gate (that had its lock cut) and parked my rent-a-truck out of sight. I entered the now unlocked door and assessed the damage. The two chain saws that I had shipped down to cut all of the trees that had fallen down ruring Rita were gone; they also stole my ATV. It was a Honda "Rancher" It was very useful around the property. The thieves didn't have the decency to close the garage door. This left my tractor in the open, free for the taking.

I returned to my home back in Reno. It is now early March, six months after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Bay St. Louis, Waveland and surrounding communities. I watched the CNN coverage of the aftermath. It showed how little had been done to aid the recovery and rebuilding of the area. It is the same that I have seen. I had been a regular watcher of Fox news. But it seems that Fox has also forgotten about hurricane victims.

I also recieved payment for my house that was blown by 135 mph winds, before the storm surge filled my house with water and mud. The check was for a whopping thirty-three hundred dollars!

In this sea of negativity there was some good. The residents of Cameron Parish were finally cleared to move back into their parish. For me this means that I had another thirty jacket orders to fill. This is a sign that things are starting to inch in the direction towards normal.

I just wish the thieves timing had been a little better. Mardi Gras was only two weeks away.

Dan's Hurricane Log - Dan's 3rd trip

2006-01-09T05:11:00.000-08:00

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.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Dan's 2nd Trip

2005-12-01T19:43:00.000-08:00

This will be rather short. In early November I returned to the area. I had two goals in mind. The first was to make further contact with the volunteer fire and EMS personnel of east Cameron Parish and supply them with clothing. My second goal was to work on cleaning up my own hurricane ravaged home.

I will start with my own property. I was lucky enough to have a nephew who had recently returned from two tours of duty in Iraq. Tray was looking to start up his own handyman business. It was perfect timing. I needed help in a bad way. My house had filled with over six feet of water during hurricane Rita. The water had left the house after the flood, but it left behind over two inches of mud. There were other problems as well. The house was almost off of its foundation.

We decided to start on the adjoining garage. It was a much smaller project. One-half of the roof had been blown off off by the storm and the "outdoor kitchen" portion of the building was torn up by the wind and water. There was also the everpresent mud problem.

For the first few days Tray and I gutted the garage/kitchen. We started by ripping out the cabinets, range, sink, and dishwasher. I found some five gallon buckets around the place and started to fill them with a mixture of mud and insulation. We filled up the truck and drove the half mile to the main road, where we dumped about twenty loads of trash before the place was clean enough to work. We worked from about 7:30 AM til' 5. After that I stopped by Lowe's and resupplied for the next day (it was a two hour trip to the hardware store).

In the end of two weeks we had completely rebuilt the garage and outdoor kitchen. All we needed were cabinets, appliances and new furniture.

For my other project I started with several phone calls. Cameron Parish was closed to outsiders so it was dificult to get in. I met with a volunteer who had made the effort to contact other volunteers who had lost their homes (to hurricane Rita) and collect their clothing sizes. We still had a few thousand dollars to spend. I wanted to at buy them warm (safe, water resistant and reflective) coats for the winter. As I write this that project is in the works. We are going to get them

Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, Dan's Trip

2005-11-17T09:38:00.000-08:00

After considerable urging I am publishing the log from my trip to Louisiana and Mississippi. I also have put together a power point presentation of this trip. It is a very large file. I hope this give those of us who are living a 'normal' lives an appreciation for what we have and some reflection on what we can do to help others.

Trip to Louisiana
This is my best recolection of our trip to Louisiana and Mississippi. I felt compelled to travel down shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit eastern Louisiana, Mississippi and Parts of Alabama. I felt that the people of these areas needed our help in some small way. For those of you who don't know me, I have been a fire fighter for over twenty years. I wanted desperately to help in some way. I have family in the New Orleans area. They were all accounted for but unfortunately, they lost their homes. My first idea was to raise money for Katrina victims. We did a “fill the boot” type promotion which raised over $27,000. I donated that money to the Red Cross. We raised about another $3,000 at the fire stations. My friend Phill Queen thought of the idea of us going and helping out the firefighters who had lost everything. The “Wal-Mart cards for Firefighters” promotion that I thought up turned out to work well. I suggested that people give Walmart cards; I would in-turn purchase clothing items for rescue workers with the proceeds. In a lot of areas to which we went Wal-Mart was one of the only stores open.

Saturday, September 17, 2005
My friend Phill Queen and I left Reno on Saturday morning, bound for Houston. Our bags were packed with minimal supplies. Our baggage limits were maximized with t- shirts and fire department caps that we had brought to give away. The flight was uneventful. Upon landing we boarded a bus and picked up a rental car. We drove to my “summer home” south of Lake Charles, Louisiana. We arrived at the house at 11 PM only to find that the door had been locked in a way that prevented us from opening it. I made a quick phone call to my mother-in-law; she put us up at her place, about 30 minutes away.

Sunday
Phill and I made entry to my house with the help of a crowbar. The temperature was in the high nineties with high humidity. Before the trip Phill had had 100 fire department t-shirts made up to go with the many donated fire department t-shirts that we had packed in our bags. We purchased a variety of socks, shorts, toothbrushes, deodorant, soap, etc. at Sam’s Club, for the now homeless firefighters of Katrina. We repaired the air conditioner in my truck (it was very hot out) and stayed the night.

Monday
As we were leaving southwest Louisiana we drove by burton Coliseum, where some of the Katrina victims were housed. Busses in the picture were about to relocate the remaining guests to another shelter.

We drove about four hours to eastern Louisiana.

We picked up the t-shirts that had been shipped to us at the Farrera Fire Equipment Company in Holden, Louisiana.

We drove another hour to the Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge near McComb and Slidell, Louisiana. We met with my friend and co-workerTom Dunn, who set us up with a place to stay in the Fish and Wildlife Office.

That night we met with local firefighters who had lost their homes and belongings to Hurricane Katrina. We pulled up our little pick-up and started giving them whatever we had brought, that they wanted.

Tuesday
We traveled the roads of eastern Louisiana and south Mississippi. The devastation that we observed was impressive. There were downed trees, groves of them. They were mostly 70 to 100 foot pine trees. We were in mostly wooded areas. Trees were down around most homes. Many of the homes were hit and damaged. You could see where people had been sawing the trees with chainsaws. This was hazardous duty as the medical system was not up to running at this time. In the town of Kiln, Mississippi we came to a surreal sight. A firehouse that had undergone the fury of the storm. There was junk everywhere. The firehouse was a mass of damaged steel. The floor of the station had been made into a makeshift (donated) clothing area. There was several feet of piled up clothing. Yet there was a firefighter on the edge doing laundry….on generator power. One of the firefighters had told us how had spent the night of the storm in a tree.

That must have been an experience! We offered up our clothing items to the firefighters and visited the surrounding area.

We talked with a neighbor who had spent the storm in his attic.

When he had thought that he, his wife and neighbor were done for, along floated a boat. This was not just any boat. It was his old boat that he had sold a while back. They grabbed on, jumped in and spent the night of the storm hanging onto a vent pipe at the top of the house.

Wednesday
Phill and I drove to Bay St. Louis and Waveland, Mississippi. The sight was incredible. Miles and miles of shoreline and homes were just gone. Where there were homes they were all badly damaged. There were the remains of homes where everywhere……all over the ground. We were about three weeks after the storm. The streets were mostly passable. We stopped by several firehouses which had been destroyed. All that was noticeable in one was its checkered floor. A group of Virginia firefighters were there, taking calls, and cleaning things up.We found the main firehouse at Bay Saint Louis. It was completely surrounded by badly damaged homes. There was a food line across the street. If you were hungry you just got in line. You ate what they fed you…no questions and no complaints. This was not gourmet food…it was just food. There were several soldiers in line.We talked with the firefighters. They told us that 3 out of 4 had lost their homes. We took them to out “supplies” and told them to help themselves. Many items were snapped up. The caps were a big hit.

Thursday
On Thursday evening I received a phone call telling me that another hurricane was heading for Louisiana…..southwest Louisiana. I didn’t think too much of it as many hurricanes had passed through the area. The last that I had heard was that this one, now named Rita, would hit south Texas.Thursday On Thursday morning I checked with Tom. He showed me the latest storm track and Hurricane Rita was heading for the Texas/Louisiana border. This put my place either in or directly to the right side of the eye of the storm. This is the worst place to have a hurricane hit. This was not good. In fact things were really starting to look bad. Phill and I hit the road. We stopped at out supply drop-off. Nothing more had come in. We were heading for Lake Charles. Traffic was fairly heavy heading across I-10 across Louisiana. We arrived back at my little farm late in the afternoon. We tried to formulate a plan. I found it difficult as this time it was my place that was now the target. A few years back Hurricane Lili had passed through the area. During that storm we were on the left side of the eye (the “good side”). The water during that storm had risen to the level of my back walkway. I thought that with this storm the water level would rise maybe a foot or two higher than that. This should keep it out of the house.

Friday
We moved the TV, Stereo, and a few clothing items upstairs. We borrowed a trailer from our friend Lisa and loaded up the trailer with the tractor and lawn mower. The wind had already started to blow. We left, expecting to return in a few days.We drove LA highway 14 through Holmwood, Hays, and Lake Arthur. Lake Arthur is a beautiful lakeside town near the coast. At Lake Arthur we stopped by the boardwalk to see folks being loaded onto a bus. This was the town’s evacuation plan being implemented. They were loading a school bus with folks who had no other means of transportation.We headed north through Rayne, “The Frog Capitol of the World” and up to my cousin Geno Richard’s rice farm, in Branch. We parked in an open field (away from trees) and camped in the house.

Saturday and Sunday
We stayed at Geno’s for the two nights. We lost power early into the first night. A generator was borrowed and we had set out a few fans, to keep “cool”. Actually, it never cooled down. During the storm the winds were near 100 miles per hour while the temperature lowered to about 85 with the ever-present high humidity.There was very little news out of the Lake Charles area. Everything on the radio was local; no regional news; no national news. Many of the radio and TV stations were knocked off the air.

On Sunday morning we decided to head back. We left the trailer because we had heard that most of the towns were heavily damaged. Curfews were in place everywhere.We drove on LA hwy 90 to avoid any roadblocks. We switched to hwy 14 as we got closer to Cameron. At one point we ran into a roadblock of Cameron Sheriff’s Officers who were very confused as to how we (two westerners) had got there. They sent us on our way. We found Lincoln Road and headed for my little farm on Black Bayou. As we approached Big Lake Road things really started to look bad. The road was choked with “Swamp Grass”, a sort of tall bamboo like grass. There was a bunch of junk on the road also….it turned to be the remains of the settlement of Deatonville. There were nails sticking out of much of the wood. Phill and I got out of the truck and donned our knee high rubber boots. We walked past the dead horse that lay in the road and headed for the pontoon bridge. It stank. We got to the edge of the bridge only to find it impassable.

I stood on its edge and could see my house.

This was not right…..the house could not be seen from the road. Something was wrong. I felt sick. A Blackhawk helicopter approach and circled us. We waved to let the pilot know that we were O.K. He flew off.

We headed back to “mama’s” house. On the way we had to turn around because some tall steel (power) line towers had fallen across the road, totally blocking it. I knew of a side road and we got around the road closure. Twenty years of “vacationing” in the area paid off. We stayed at my mother-in-law’s that night.

Monday
It was time to sort things out. The first order of business on was to find a chain saw and hopefully a generator. The storm had knocked out all of the power in the region. There was a freezer full of food at “mama’s” that we couldn’t let spoil, if possible. 95% of the food in people’s refrigerators and freezers spoiled. It created a health hazard. Phill and I drove around town. It was almost vacant. Power lines and poles were down everywhere!

Because of the people using generators (and back-feeding the power grid), many of the lines were energized. You were constantly driving over power lines. All of the power poles that were not down were bent. We made our way to the rumored Sam’s club grand opening. It was not just a rumor. We waited in line for close to an hour. We talked to people in line. The stories were all to be remembered.Power was out in the entire town. There was no air conditioning, except when you were in a car or truck. As with hurricane Katrina, the banking system had failed. You could not buy anything with checks or debit cards. Using a credit card was a hit and miss proposition. Cash was the only reliable form of trade. There were only a couple of gas stations opened. Lines stretched around the block. You might have to wait all day to fill your tank.When we entered Sam’s the shelves were mostly stocked. It was obvious that they had opened a few days earlier than anticipated. But Sam’s was one of only a handful of stores that was open in this town of 70,000. They had chain saws and generators. I bought one of each, along with a bunch of heavy duty extension cords.We returned to our new home and got set up. We stretched extension cords thought the house we plugged in the fridge and freezer, the fan and the TV. At least we saved the food and had could watch the news.We made another attempt to access my house. Still no luck. All I could do is look and wonder why things looked the way that they did…all wrong.We arrived back at the house to find that the whole family had returned. That night there were eight people and three dogs sleeping in one room, with one fan for air circulation.

Tuesday
We made yet another attempt to access my little farm house. Phill and I talked our friend Carolyn’s nephew Marcus into taking us into the area by boat.

We launched at the Calcasieu Boat launch and motored through the Black Bayou ship lock. There were dozens of dead cows near the boat launch. The stink was to be remembered.

We got through the lock but we couldn’t get past the bridge; the waters were just too high.

We next tried to motor over to near Fred’s, our local watering hole. We got to Fred’s and found that Hwy 384 “Big Lake Road” was under four inches of water and was acting as a spillway for the Intercoastal Waterway.

We tugged and pushed the boat across the highway. We were in Black Bayou and motored over to within five hundred feet of the house. But now the water was just low enough to where we couldn’t get close. The marsh was partially under water (and full of angry water moccasins). On my street, “Reon Road” the water was too deep to pass wearing knee waders. A stick was added to repell the angry snakes in the vacinity. The smell in the area was disgusting.

A dead sheep guarded the end of Reon. There were dead animals everywhere, deer, sheep, cows, horses, armadillos, opossums, raccoons, nutria, etc. It was estimated that there were over 15,000 dead cows in the area.Marcus motored his boat down to Deatonville to check on my friend Ron Granger’s house. Ron lost a house, a mobile home and several semi-trailers. The lower story to his elevated house was gone, including his main staircase. I called Ron on the cell phone. He urged me on. I climbed up what was left of his spiral staircase and entered his upstairs. The bottom of Ron’s second floor is fourteen feet above ground level.

I entered his back door and found his second story entirely intact. Only a cup of water had blown in through a window sill. I grabbed three warm beers from his fridge and took them downstairs. We drank them before leaving for the launch.

Wednesday
Phill and I drove back to Holden to make a supply pick-up. It was three and a half hours in each direction. We stopped by Branch on the way back and picked up the tractor. We once again slipped into Lake Charles.

Thursday
I drove Phill back to Houston to catch his plane. We left at 4 in the morning. There was no power between Houston and Lafayette. That’s over 200 miles of coastline with no power. It was still hot (very hot) and sticky. I returned to Lake Charles and made another attempt to get down to the Cameron area. I made it as far as the Cameron Prairie Management office. There I found just about every fire engine that belonged in Cameron Parish. They were all parked along the road; they no longer had stations to be parked in. The towns of Cameron, Creole, Holly Beach, and many more had been destroyed. Holly Beach only had a water tower to distinguish where the town had been. As I walked up to the Refuge the heat was getting to me. It was about 95 degrees out, with high humidity. This created a “heat index” near 110. One important step in staying well in this climate was to hydrate at every opportunity.

There were two Army Blackhawk helicopters landing at the time. I grabbed a bottled water from a pallet, opened it and went to sit.

I looked over and saw that the fellow sitting down next to me was General Russell Honore. General Honore was put in charge of the Katrina relief efforts by the President. Now he was in charge of Rita also. The General was having his Colonel’s order up troops and supplies for the now homeless population of Cameron Parish. This was good to see as up to this point there no visible outside help in the area. I met with the Sheriff of Cameron Parish. This was a very important contact to have for someone who is exposed as an outsider every time he opens his mouth! I made contact with one of the Parish’s Assistant Fire Chief’s. I told him of the things that we had been buying for other firefighters. He was more than happy to have me do some shopping for Cameron Firefighters.Friday Friday morning came and I heard that the Black Bayou Bridge was to be opened from 7 AM until 10AM. I was at the crossing at 7AM; the bridge opened to auto traffic at 7:30. It was to close at 10AM for the day. The bridge mechanism gave to the water during the storm. The bridge was being moved by a tug boat. It will be repaired over the next few months. The idea of being on an island with the heat, humidity, little food, and poisonous snakes for 23 hours did not excite me.There was a dead sheep decaying at the entrance of my road. There was nothing that I could do for it. It stunk. There were an estimated fifteen thousand dead cows in the area. Maybe the stench will keep the looters away.

I took my little tractor off of the trailer and pushed my way through the muck towards my place. It took about ten minutes to make it to the front gate. There were remnants of houses everywhere.

There were lots of boards with nails sticking out. This was not a good place for tires.My yard was rather clean. The trees had filtered all of the debris out on its way up from Cameron and Deatonville.

The house was another story. I found that it had moved sideways and back on it’s foundation, that there had been over four feet of water in the house, over six feet in my shop, and that there was now two inches of mud everywhere in the house.

My shop had only half its roof intact. The insides looked as if a washing machine had tumbled everything about. The water had been over my head in this area. I found a dead water moccasin in the shop area. As close as I was to it, I was glad to see that it had its tail caught and had drown. It was within striking distance. I don’t believe in disturbing nature’s system by killing animals that I can’t eat. But at this distance, it was much better to find this pit viper dead!

Time was running short and I had to leave. As I was packing up I ran into a fire engine from the Cajun Country V.F.D. I gave them a dozen t-shirts, some socks and shorts and went back to town. I went shopping at Sam’s and headed to Cameron parish. I arrived in Cameron just in time to watch the sun set. I tried (unsuccessfully) this evening to meet up with the volunteers to hand over clothing items. It was late. It was getting close to curfew. I needed to get back to my temporary housing near Iowa.I drove towards Iowa. I tried to stay to the most remote road that I could find. I dodged the power lines that were down and crossing the road. I came upon a small convoy of vehicles, three police escorts and one army vehicle. Unfortunately for me…..the last police car hung a U-turn and turned its lights on me (Uh-Oh!)I was on a remote road and out after the designated curfew. Violators are being rounded up and taken for a long stay at the county jail. I could have stayed where I was and slept in the truck. I had taken a gamble and it looked as if I had lost. I exited my vehicle and stood by the driver’s door. Before the officer appeared the ever present swarm of mosquitoes arrived. They bit the dickens out of me.I talked to the Calcasieu Sheriff’s Officer. I explained my “mission”. Fortunately, he understood how I ended up out after the witching hour. I was issued a pass so that I could drive the three remaining miles back to my temporary quarters.

Saturday and Sunday
On Saturday I spent most of the day at my now wrecked home. The bridge was opened for auto traffic from 8 to 9 AM and 3 to 5 PM. I pushed several inches of smelly marsh mud out of the “great room”. All of the furniture was waterlogged and too heavy for me to move by myself. It was hot and humid. I pushed gallons and gallons of mud from the house and then sat on my front porch for a while. It was totally peaceful. I took a drink of water that I had carried in. I sat in a mud covered chair on the porch. As I gazed on my yard I saw lots of critters moving through the yard.

There was a flock of Rosette Spoonbills eating bugs near my pond. Spoonbills are the most beautiful pink color, much like flamingos. There were lots of slithering creatures as well, Water Moccasins. They almost floated upon the surface of the water as they swam. I thought to myself, it wouldn’t be very good to be bit by one of them. I was alone, on an “island”, without a way to get help, without any way to leave in a hurry and my place was surrounded by snakes. I thought that I ought to be very careful until the bridge opens again. After more mud pushing it was time to get on my little tractor and leave. I snapped a few last pictures and headed the ¼ mile to the main road. My entrance was choked with trees. As I maneuvered over them the tractor slipped sideways and into a ditch full of water. I was stuck. I got out about an hour later with the help of a helpful neighbor.

Monday
I traveled back to the Cameron Wildlife Headquarters. I wanted to collect some telephone numbers for future contacts. As I entered the main office I encountered five people in a make-shift command post. There were two firefighters from a southern California fire department, two army officers and one local communications officer. They told me that they were trying to get the start of the Incident Command System up and running. I was out of time. It was time to drive back to Iowa, load my stuff and head for the airport in Houston. What’s next? In mid October I held another fund raiser for the emergency workers of Hurricane Rita. With the able bodied help of the young men and women of the Northern Nevada Fire Academy and Reno Firefighters we raised app. $15,000. At the end of October, I returned to the Lake Charles / Cameron area. My plan was two-fold. First, was to help the emergency workers of this already forgotten corner on Louisiana.

Secondly, I made an attempt to start the clean up from my own loss.

Will I rebuild....you bet you!