Blue tarps bring memories of our own disaster
April 2006Uprooted trees and blue tarp-covered roofs started popping into view just south of DeQuincy, La., as my husband, Frank, and I, our son Schenk and grandson Nils headed toward Holly Beach on Louisiana 27.
Schenk had warned us nothing was left standing there but the water tower since Hurricane Rita raged ashore just west of the popular beach community in September with 120-mile winds, torrential rain and a 20-foot storm surge. Still, it was hard to imagine “the Cajun Riviera” and its 150 or so mostly weekend and vacation homes being wiped off the map.
The hunters in our family liked to stay at Holly Beach during the Louisiana duck and goose hunting seasons, and they often fished there in the spring. The rest of us enjoyed stopping on our way to or from sightseeing at nearby Sea Rim Park at Sabine Pass, Texas. We swam there a couple of times, until we learned alligators did, too.
It was raining hard as we drove toward the gulf this time and from the number of blue roofs we were passing, it seemed all the roofing companies advertised on roadside signs must have more business than they could handle – or that homeowners could afford. One hand-printed sign we saw said “FEMA sucks.”
“There’s a lot of angry Cajuns around here right now – first the hurricane and now it’s raining on all the Mardi Gras parades this weekend,” Schenk observed.
A few miles from Sulphur, we noticed the horse farm with the black and white pintos we always admired on the way to the gulf seemed to be OK. But at Sulphur, still 35 miles from Holly Beach, we found the MacDonald’s sign in tatters, the Sonic sign gone, a gas station with two pumps flattened and piles of debris.
All power poles, high lines and substations were brand new as we drove on to Hackberry, and so was everything around the base of the bridge across the Intercostal Waterway. One of our favorite spots, Spicer Bait and Tackle and its boat and cabin rental operations at Hackberry, looked intact but the town obviously had suffered.
From there on we saw more and more debris and damage. But our biggest shock came at Sabine Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s Center just north of Holly Beach. We had always loved that little interpretive center with its giant Spanish moss-draped live oaks outside and the display inside of indigenous plants, animals, birds, reptiles, fish and amphibians described in detail by a mechanized but authentic-looking and sounding “Cajun man.” All that was left was a concrete slab and a few stripped-naked oaks.
When we reached the gulf, there was no Holly Beach. More than 15 feet of surge water had covered it, Schenk reminded us. All we found was a sandy moonscape of broken concrete, twisted pilings, crushed cars, a ship channel marker from the gulf and some tattered, bravely waving American flags where beach homes, rental cabins, a general store and gas pumps once stood. The water tower northwest of the beach is now painted red and in big, bold letters identifies Holly Beach USA, which, sadly, no longer exists.
The question now is will it and scores of other smaller cities wiped out or heavily damaged by Rita – which has been so much less publicized than Katrina and New Orleans – ever be able to rebuild and thrive again? The obstacles are daunting.
Don Simons, park interpreter for Mount Magazine State Park, grew up in Sulphur and his mother and brother still live there. Don recently told me that after his mother’s sister drowned in the attic of her home outside of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, his brother took no chances when he learned Rita was predicted to hit the southwest Louisiana coast. He safely evacuated their mother and his own family to southwest Arkansas, but when they returned a week later, their Sulphur homes were too damaged to inhabit. Don’s mom spent the next few weeks in Shreveport with his sister and at Mount Magazine with his family, and her visit is the only good thing he’s found from Rita.
“This is the farthest north my mom had been in her 85 years and Mount Magazine was the highest she had ever been on land,” Don said. “She might never have come to visit had it not been for Rita.” When his mother returned home to deal with insurance, contractors and FEMA, she at first had to stay with neighbors. Now, she’s living in a FEMA trailer in her driveway. But progress is so slow, Don’s says, his family’s homes are still without electricity and water, and he feels powerless.
Seeing all those blue roofs in southwest Louisiana gave me a creepy feeling of déjà vu. My parents’ home was one of more than 1,000 destroyed or severely damaged by the F3 tornado that hit Van Buren 10 years ago this month. A sea of blue tarps was needed to cover damaged housetops there.
The April 21, 1996, the twister came from the Moffett bottoms southwest of Fort Smith, ripped Garrison Avenue and the city’s northeast side, blasted on to the top of Mount Vista and northeast Van Buren – leaving a 10-mile long, half-mile wide path of destruction. It killed two children in Fort Smith, injured at least 80 people in Sebastian and Crawford counties and damaged or destroyed $300 million worth of homes, apartments, businesses, properties, utilities and services.
Within eight months, however, Van Buren and Fort Smith had cleaned up and disposed of tons of storm debris and made great progress at rebuilding its homes and businesses. Now, few traces of the disaster remain, except perhaps the ongoing downtown Fort Smith development spurred by the twister.
By contrast, nearly eight months after Rita, southwest Louisiana is still struggling to survive. I pray it can experience a miraculous recovery like we had after the 1996 tornado, and there are signs of hope. Sea Rim State Park at Sabine Pass may reopen in June, the Texas State Parks website says. We eagerly await Cajun Man’s return.
Linda Seubold, editor of Entertainment Fort Smith Magazine, can be reached at lindaseubold@efortsmith.com. Read her archived columns and articles online.
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