February 22 to 25, 2006
We are staying at a campground near Kinder, LA. It is north and east of Lake Charles which was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Rita. We see a little tree damage here but that is about all. This campground is filled with FEMA trailers, probably about 50. We are about the only ones here that are just traveling through. We drove to Lake Charles and found very little damage from Hurricane Rita, mostly damage to roofs and some tree damage. It is interesting to note the winds at Covington came out of the north and all the trees fell south. This was from the back of the hurricane. Here the trees have fallen to the west thus the winds were out of the east. Also, here the trees were uprooted rather than just breaking off. On Friday we drove to the gulf coast where the eye of Hurricane Rita came ashore. As we leave Lake Charles and head south there is only tree damage. Most of this highway goes through a Wildlife Refuge so there are very few houses or buildings but we can see debris that has either washed up or blown against the trees along side of the road. As we reach the gulf we are in a Holly Beach but there is nothing left of the town. Not one house, building or even a tree is standing. Some cleanup has been done but it is a very strange sight. Somehow the water washed up under the foundations of homes and the slab floors just broke into pieces. Frames of mobile homes are strewn everywhere. There are still no services here. Two or three properties have been cleaned up and one has a new foundation poured. This family has a trailer parked there. The city has provided porta-potties but these people have no services other than a possible generator. As we leave Holly Beach we are heading east to Cameron. We took a ferry across a little bay. Here we could see the remains of boats that had washed up on dry land. While on the ferry we spoke with a man who works there. He said about 10 large boats were lost. He said the only life lost was one man who drowned refusing to leave his home. Cameron is a larger town than Holly Beach. The homes here too were mostly destroyed. Probably were about 10 or so that could be salvaged…with lots of work. As we head back north the fields are strewn with debris. One wonders if these small towns will ever recover since they have little resources and very few volunteers as we saw in the bigger cities. Friday night we ate at Cajun Charlie’s. They served excellent food and had a live band which played Cajun music as well as country. It was not “economical” but we enjoyed it. Saturday was a rainy day. Two Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans were rescheduled for Sunday. That is very unusual as parades are just not held on Sunday but the importance of Mardi Gras this year accounted for the change.