What a week! I was up in Michigan. The idea was to film with Mark Zona. But on Sunday (Aug. 14) I was told that some of my friends were in trouble from the flooding. I couldn’t stay in Michigan under those circumstances so I flew into New Orleans Monday morning.
The drive home to Gonzales, La., showed me everything I needed to see. The water was over everything except the road. I saw several alligators that were coming up with the water. By the time I got home I knew we were in real trouble as a community.
My family was blessed. The water came all the way to the front of our house, but it never came in the house. I was able to move all the vehicles out except for my truck. I kept it there so we had a way to get out if necessary. As of right now we suffered no damage whatsoever.
We do have another family member, however. Our friend’s dog is living in our backyard. The way he’s being spoiled he may never want to leave.
I’m going to give you some random thoughts and tell a few short stories. Hopefully, that’ll give you a sense of what it’s like here and give you some perspective of the power of Mother Nature.
I told you about my house. Less than a block from it the houses still had 3 or 4 feet of water in them as of early this afternoon. [That’s a little past noon on Thursday, Aug. 18].
We bought a 55 gallon drum of diesel fuel and a bag of ice for a friend who was trapped and without power. We delivered it right to his door by boat without any problems. The police here are doing a good job. They’re directing traffic and keeping the roads open, but they aren’t interfering with local efforts to help.
That was a lesson we all learned from Katrina. The government didn’t do us any favors back then so now we don’t wait for help. Rescue efforts by locals started immediately. No one waited for help, and no one looked around waiting for someone to tell them how to help. I’m sure that’s one reason there have been so few deaths.
One death is one too many, but all things considered it could have been a lot worse. There are several hundred thousand people who live in the areas around here that are under water. I think we’ve had less than 20 people die from the storm.
Another fellow I know was getting water in his house. He got in his boat to leave — almost everyone around here has a boat of some kind — but quickly realized that the road was too cluttered to navigate. He decided he’d go through the woods. A cottonmouth fell into his boat. He kicked it. The snake bit him on the toe. Hospital.
I went over to his house yesterday to see how he’s doing. He was out of the hospital and tearing out his walls. He was still wearing the wrist bracelet they put on him. That might sound extreme, but he didn’t have a choice.
You have to tear everything apart immediately after it gets flooded. If you don’t, black mold sets in and then your house is pretty much worthless. I think the rule is that for every foot of water you have to go up 4 feet. That can quickly amount to a lot of sheetrock, and if you think it’s heavy and nasty when it’s dry try handling it when it’s wet.
Damage like that is bad enough, but to make matters worse a lot of people didn’t have flood insurance. They thought that if you built to code — we all did after Katrina — you didn’t need it. That’s going to make the rebuilding process all the worse. I’d guess that’ll take at least a year, maybe longer. I’m telling you this place is a mess. It’s every bit as bad as it looks on TV.
This’ll give you an idea of what we faced: In 24 hours we got 29 inches of rain. Just up the road in Walker they got 31 inches in the same period of time.
The water’s going down slowly, though. We should be all right if we don’t get any more rain. But, if we get another 2 or 3 inches, God help us. There’s nowhere for it to go.
