“This has been the eight weeks of hell,” Mr. Days are spent negotiating bureaucracies for insurance help and government aid, cleaning ravaged homes and businesses and wading through the traffic jams of displaced residents. We’re not just sitting on our butts with our hands out, saying, ‘Come do this for me.’ The extent of this catastrophe rises to a level where if it’s going to fall only on locals to help locals, we’re going to be in the thick of recovery much longer than we need to be.”įor many residents, life is now consumed by discomfort and distress. “I want people to know that we’re not OK, we’re not back to normal,” said Mr. Many residents’ homes were uninsured, and some said they had deductibles over $20,000, a sum so unaffordable their insurance policies were rendered useless. Entire blocks of homes sustained so much damage they will almost certainly have to be razed.
HURRICANE LAURA AFTERMATH CRACKED
Trees were shredded and houses cracked open like eggs.
More than two dozen people died in its aftermath. 27 in Cameron Parish, south of Lake Charles, as a Category 4 storm with 150-mile-per-hour winds. “I can’t say if the president has something to do with it. “I can’t say if it’s got something to do with it,” said Gary Hanney, a 56-year-old construction worker.
HURRICANE LAURA AFTERMATH TORRENT
But the undertow of that history has been a fear that help may not come when needed - a fear that has been realized for some as they watch their city claw its way back.Īnd as an onslaught of disaster, social unrest and campaign developments dominate the news, residents have been left to wonder if that torrent of headlines has eclipsed their misfortune and stymied efforts to help. It is a legacy that has forged a level of self-reliance, an attitude that those who were clever enough or willing to invest the sweat equity were capable of unlocking the city’s promise. The dire needs of Lake Charles have been all but erased. But as many see it, the city was also the victim of an extraordinary year of misfortune, one that has subjected the nation to a carousel of calamity - record storm and wildfire seasons on top of a pandemic. Lake Charles, a working-class city of roughly 78,000 people, has been eviscerated by a direct assault from this season’s hurricanes - Laura, one of the most powerful storms to hit Louisiana, followed six weeks later by Delta. “I want to say we’re tough, but I don’t know right now.” Thomas said of her hometown, and she is worried that the help will not come.
“We’re not getting the help that we need,” Ms. Her plan to retire at 59½, as refinery workers often do, has been torn up along with her roof and the trees in her yard. Thomas, 56, from having to dip into retirement accounts to pay for home repairs. And she is doing some rough math: Neither insurance money nor federal aid is enough to keep Ms. She is replacing the car tire that was sliced by metal debris on the road. She is haggling with her insurance company, which reimbursed her for 14 of the 26 days her family stayed in a hotel. The shock subsided quickly, replaced by the tedium and exasperation that accompany the slog toward recovery. Trinette Thomas felt a barrage of surprise and despair as she strained to absorb the destruction surrounding her and imagine the lengths it would take to stagger back.
That first drive through Lake Charles after Hurricane Laura had been a gut punch.
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