Rue Rude

Cousin J reports on Hurricane Rita's aftermath

"We are just barely up and running here in Lake Charles. The only reason I have internet access and cable at this time is that D obtained a wire off the ground from a neighbor's yard 3 houses away and through some form of piracy.... connected it to our house. It is dangling from rooftops and we have repeatedly warned the children not to run too fast across the yard because the wire might choke them!! Usually we have wireless internet but D somehow rigged it to work... hope we don't get in trouble. Legally, we still have no phone or cable service and therefore few of the cousins or aunts/uncles around LC can actually email.

"Mom and Dad have been in regular contact with L and N and are aware of Uncle S's condition.  He is at a nursing home in [a New Orleans suburb that was flooded] now since he is unable to take care of himself.  According to my Dad,  Uncle S is not very happy and just wants to go to his own home.  It was badly damaged during hurricane Katrina due to flooding.

"My house is in great shape compared to those throughout town.  I actually feel very lucky.  There is nothing, NOTHING left in Cameron Parish.  Only slabs and debris.  I can't even imagine.

"It will take a very long time to fix everything around here.  The FEMA blue roof program put a temporary roof on my house the other day.  Now at least the rain will not continue to fall in.  We have spoken to three roofers and placed our names on their lists.  They estimate many months before they get to us.  This is pretty normal for everyone.  They also said they cannot find roofing supplies anywhere from here to Tennessee.  I don't know when it will be fixed.  I can't fix my kitchen until my roof is finished or the water may come in again.  Oh, it is just not very pretty either. Oh well.... I am still so thankful we are able to stay in our home and that we didn't lose all of our belongings.

"The night of the storm,  I stayed awake listening to the radio in Baton Rouge.  At that time, there were tropical storm strength winds and storms in Baton Rouge and I felt afraid there.  I couldn't imagine what it must be like 2 1/2 hours away in Lake Charles.  I was sure that there would be nothing left when we returned.  In many places there isn't anything left.  Many homes are totaled completely.  A huge percentage of homes' roofs are damaged (like 80%) and over half of those roofs have been totaled by insurance adjusters (including mine).

"If there is any positive way to look at things, 98% of the people in Lake Charles left town on a mandatory evacuation.  There was no loss of life due to the storm and people listened to the authorities.  Thank goodness they were smart enough to listen.  Also, it has been a good reminder of how GOOD people can be.  Neighbors helping neighbors and strangers helping strangers.  You see it everywhere --- for everything  --- for all kinds of jobs, help with food, shelter , clothing.... etc..

"I will keep in touch.

"Love, J"

A concert overlooking the Arc de Triomphe

This afternoon I went to an impromptu concert at N’s house. The musicians were a French boy and girl preparing for a concours next month. The young violinist played amazingly well and wore a pair of slinky transparent black trousers that not many people could have worn as well as she did. The young man had a blond ponytail and seemed like a nice fils de bonne famille who had been made to practice a lot. But with the dissonant music he was playing, I couldn’t really tell if it was him or the piece.

After N got a divorce, I thought she would be poor, as so many women are. I was surprised the first time I saw her gorgeous apartment with its view across the roofs of Paris. Afterwards we drank champagne supplied by a family friend in the business. Another American woman there, whom I have known for years, told me she was getting a divorce from her French husband. It’s not another woman, he says, and she still hopes he will change his mind. How sad. I always thought he was sweet, although a bit boring. What makes a man like that suddenly want out?

So many times the clash of cultures ends by making a marriage more difficult, rather than more exciting as it seemed at the beginning. I have seen it over and over through my years in Paris: the pretty (usually blond) culture-hungry American, British, Australian girl, and the charming French guy. They meet, fall in love, marry, have a child or two, and then discover that their ideas of what normal life should be are completely different. He expects to have lunch with his grandmother every second Sunday at the very least, and spend half of August with his family, and every New Year’s Eve with his best friends from the fac. She expects to take the kids home every summer and is horrified when the teacher slaps them or tells them they are nul (a regular occurrence). He thinks her manners and cooking are bad and that she should put more effort into how she dresses. She doesn’t want to be a dame du 16e (see previous post) and sometimes wants to sit around in jeans with a glass of beer with her girlfriends, telling dirty jokes and laughing loudly. I hope they work it out, for their children’s sake. But so often, they don’t.

Another Louisiana report; Harry Potter in Paris

I met my cousins' cousin E from one of the Louisiana towns that was badly hit by hurricane Katrina. E is in Paris to teach at a collège which she had been lured into believing was in a nearby suburb. It turns out to be about an hour by train east of Paris.

E and her family and indeed all of southern Louisiana have had a traumatic month. She had to leave the city with her mother in the middle of the night before hurricane Katrina hit. She pointed out that the evacuation of New Orleans was very well organized and that with all the coverage of the Superdome disaster, there was not enough emphasis on how almost the entire region emptied out in orderly fashion. This was due to the interstates being converted to one-way roads with all four or six lanes going away from the hurricane zone. The southernmost parishes were evacuated first. "All the highways were one-way all the way from New Orleans to Jackson, Mississippi," E said.

E's grandfather  is very ill, and he and his son decided to stay behind in their house which was 12 feet above sea level and had never flooded in the past. His grandson, E's brother, argued and argued with them that they needed to leave, but when they refused, E's brother stayed behind too.

E and her mother made it to Monroe, in north Louisiana, to a relative's house. Then they sat listening to the radio and watching TV for the next few days as things got worse and worse, not knowing if their men were alive or dead. Meanwhile, the house shook and shuddered. A huge live oak crashed through the roof (this is a tree so heavy that it sinks in water), then, when the wind changed direction after the eye of the hurricane passed, the tree was blown off their roof and onto a neighbor's roof. Lake Pontchartrain surged into the house and they had to take shelter in the attic, where they at least knew to take an ax to break through the roof if necessary-- in hurricane Betsy, people had died by drowning in their attic refuges. There was so little air with the water in the house and the intense heat that in spite of the rain, E's father ended up opening up the roof to be able to breathe.

When the water went down a little, E's brother slung an old purse around his neck and set off with his bicycle, towing it while swimming through the filthy water full of water moccasins (poisonous water snakes), for a nearby family house on higher ground to see if the car was still there. It was and eventually they all made it north to Monroe, not before E and her mother had several days of thinking they might have died. E lost all her things that had been in storage in a low-lying area; FEMA allowed her to apply for emergency help and she has already received about $4000 worth, but her parents are not eligible for grants, only loans, because they are homeowners and not renters.

They have had to strip out the carpet and all the sheetrock all through their house, and there is still a line of mold all the way around, and the house stinks. All their photos, books, clothes and furniture are gone. E's grandfather has not completely recovered from the shock and because his son has so much work to do with the flood damage, he has had to go into a nursing home far away until his son can find a local one open again.

No one thinks New Orleans will ever be what it was before. Who will live again in the Ninth Ward, hardest hit by the flooding? "We are all afraid it will just turn into a theme park for tourists," said E.

All the 10,000 fish in the wonderful New Orleans aquarium, the best one I've ever seen, died. E hadn't heard that, and it brought another shadow to her face. The Aquarium of the Americas was the pride of New Orleans, a magnificent, state-of-the-art building. You entered the aquarium through a tunnel of glass, under the vast sea tank, with sharks and rays swimming over your head and around you. There was a jungle aviary and a Louisiana section and many individual tanks with ghostly delicate jellyfish and iridescent sea snakes and piranhas (they had to keep all the dead ones refrigerated for state inspection-- piranhas would be in seventh heaven if released in the wild in Louisiana). The staff had stayed throughout the hurricane and its aftermath. It looked as if the aquarium would survive-- it was near the Mississippi levee on high ground, and was not flooded; they had two generators to keep the water aerated, and they had enough food for the fish for almost a week. The staff was dedicated and stayed all week through all the fright and shootings, even though they were right near the scary Convention Center area. Who would ever have thought that a week's emergency supply of food and electricity wasn't enough for any disaster in a major United States city?

........................................

The 6th Harry Potter book came out at midnight on Friday night in Paris, about three months after its arrival in the English language (also at midnight and also in Paris). In French it is called "Harry Potter and the Prince of Mixed Blood." Harry Potter has probably taught more French children to read English than any school ever has. There is an element of one-upmanship in having read it in English three months before your classmates. Here are a couple of Harry Potter photos. On the movie mag cover, advertising the 4th HP movie, Harry is called "Seigneur des ados," "Lord of the teenagers," a pun on "Seigneur des anneaux," Lord of the Rings.

   

Caroline's discovery

My friend Caroline, whose family moved to Paris from Mauritius when she was a young woman, has been going through her parents' things since her father died not long ago. She has been very sad, missing them and having to do all the work alone, even though she is one of five children and works full-time.

One day she was looking at an old cushion from her parents'  living-room sofa, stuffed, as she thought, with horsehair, and decided to keep the cushion cover and throw out the stuffing. But when she put her hands in to pull out the horsehair, she felt papers instead. She carefully removed the cover, and there, hiding just out of sight all those years on the sofa, were all her parents' love letters from the 1940s, before they got married.

More from the Louisiana relatives

From my uncle in Houma, here is a link to local photos of Katrina and Rita damage. Most of the damage was south of Houma.

[Not relatives, but I just discovered through LaCoquette a blog about New Orleans from a Brooklyn New Orleanian, and another, antigravity.]

From another Lake Charles cousin:

Hey all,

continuing update..

D, S, L, and D's brother E went to Lake Charles yesterday to survey damage, help out, and clean out refrigerators.... (eeeewwww)  !!!!!

Dad  (L) stayed and did not return to Baton Rouge last night... though we have already received a call from him this morning saying, "So when are you coming back, D... cause I think I'll go back to Baton Rouge... it is too _____ hot!"  [There is no electricity.]

D said it looks like a bomb went off on W Street and throughout many areas in town.  We will send photos soon.  I do not know how our house wasn't hit... there is some damage but nothing compared to others.  We lost many shingles and have water damage on the kitchen and living room ceilings.  Some things like awnings and siding were blown off the house and ALL but one baby tree have been blown down.  Downtown Lake Charles had 125 mile per hour winds sustained for about 6 hours.  Uncle F parked his SUV in our driveway to avoid water damage from the bayou only to have one of my massive water oak trees fall right down on it!  D says that it looks like the trees were strategically placed on the ground in order to avoid our house.  Even the 12 foot cinder-block wall (fence) down the right side of my house BLEW OVER and my house didn't ?????   The compound looks terribly different... NO TREES!   Even the woods behind Aunt B's house are NO MORE!!! You can actually see the Port of Lake Charles from her backyard.

D's parents have a tree right through the middle of their house and D spent much of the day yesterday on their roof, 105 degree plus temp., trying to at least cover it with a tarp....  All of them had some level of heat exhaustion when they got back to Baton Rouge.  Quite worried about Dad in that heat! [He's in his mid-70s.] Hopefully we can get  him back here soon.

Mom is fine.  She is staying with my Aunt E L (Dad's brother's wife) .  She is quite comfortable and only 1/2 mile from me.  She is going to a Baton Rouge Doctor tomorrow....  The day we all evacuated she was told that the antibiotic she was on (after many already) was not working and the bacteria had become resistant to the drug...  They were to call her out a new RX but then all of the pharmacies shut down.  I have been quite worried about her.  D and I have a very close friend here in Baton Rouge who is a doctor, and he recommended this new doctor who said he would see Mom right naway.  So I will get her there soon.

Some say we will not be allowed back to town for 7 to 10 days.  This morning I heard 30 days and almost croaked!  OH.....  I just want to go home.

All in BR have been so hospitable and we are so unbelievably thankful!!!  Imagine those with no place to go!!!

Info previously reported by D and M on all of our homes is accurate .... however, the damage, even when seemingly minimal, can end up being tremendous, as we are not truly able to see some of it completely yet (like the water damage).

More phone numbers if needed: [ ]

Cell phone service is poor so keep trying!

Thanks--Hanging in there.

J

On the spot in Lake Charles after Rita

Another email from cousin M from Baton Rouge, whose parents live in Lake Charles:

Here's an updated update:

I was part of the crew that went to L.C. yesterday.  Today I'm at work.
Strange times.

The tree damage to Lake Charles is incredible.We were guessing that about 50 percent of the trees in the city are down.  Many roads (including W) are not passable due to large trees in the road.  Lots of power lines down.  There is no rhyme or reason for the type of tree down, how it fell or the direction it fell.  All kinds of trees fell in all different directions.  Many snapped in half, many toppled over unearthing huge attached root balls.  Some trees literally twisted completely around and fell.  The topography of Lake Charles has drastically changed.

J's new house seems to be the one with the most damage.  As D said, a large tree fell on the front gashing a large hole in J's roof. Water poured into an upstairs bedroom and then ran down the walls to the downstairs.  Fortunately, none of his furniture was in the house yet (their move date was last weekend).  We (M, C I, J, C E, R, F, M's friend G, J and I) were able to cut off all the protruding branches (the tree was too big to cut off the roof) and nail a tarp down over the hole.  C [Street] lost MANY trees and we had to cut our way through downed trees in the road just to drive to J's house.  At least 10 houses on that street have a tree on the roof.

B and R's house lost a lot of their beautiful trees in their back yard.  As D said, there was some minor damage to the house.

The high water mark at F's house was inches from his front and rear porch doors.  No water inside the house though. A real close call.  The garage still had some left over water in it.  Dad lost some power tools and maybe his riding lawn mower (we'll see). C did lose the majority of his trees in his back yard. Some split, but most fell over from the roots. His house is fine. At the compound, S and S's rental house where J and A are staying took a huge branch in the northeast corner.This is over [the children's] room. The room took in a lot of water. The carpet is drenched as were some of the clothes, etc. We bagged up all of the kids' clothes and brought them to Baton Rouge for washing. All the trees at the compound are gone. It was certainly a sad sight to see that big old pecan tree down. It fell the only place it could have without damaging anything: into D and J's lot. Also, that big tree near the corner of the lot and S's property on Woodruff fell. It fell across D and J's driveway. When it did it smashed the rear window of Dad's car. Aunt G's house missed having a huge tree fall on it by about one foot. It fell across their driveway. Also, a huge tree fell and crushed the pen/storage area in the back of the yard where Uncle L used to keep his dogs. The L house had some minor roof damage (which I'm sure by now L has already repaired). L, D and S went to Lake Charles this morning. Anyhow, there's an updated 411. If I didn't mention a house or area, it's because D's email covered it. Overall, Lake Charles sustained a lot of damage that will take a while to clear away. J K and J I went down Ryan Street [the main street of downtown Lake Charles] and said the businesses there took a big hit. As for our family, all property damage sustained is repairable. We'll be watching the LSU game tonight at D's house. We still have the same crew staying there (J, H + family are there now too - the Bs are staying with me). O is cooking a big roast. D and C are at work and their kids in school. We're all looking forward to gathering again and cheering on the Tigers. One thing for sure about ALL of our Lake Charles kin, regardless of their own personal circumstances, when they are around a good time is had by all. Geaux Tigers!

Love, M

Just after Hurricane Rita: Sunday 25 September

What it's like when it's your family.

From another cousin in Baton Rouge, where the refugees from Lake Charles are staying:

Dad (F), C, M, J I, J K and R all left this morning to check out the properties and repair what they could. M and C got [to Lake Charles] either early this morning or late last night. Most houses have minimal damage with the exception of J I’s new house  (they were set to move in next week) and J K’s house.

There is a curfew at 7 p.m., so the men are working feverishly to do what they can before they have to leave.

Here’s what they are saying when they call in: The devastation is unbelievable. Almost every tree is down. Trees that are still standing are stripped bare and are twisted in odd ways. From the looks of it, it will be weeks before they have electricity.

Using frustratingly undependable cell phones, we’ve been able to gather some information. Here’s what we have.

Mom and Dad: water went up to the porch line (10 feet above ground), but not into the house. The garage is flooded. Their car was parked at J’s house and a limb flew through the window.

C and K: All trees in their yard are gone. No significant damage to their house. No water in the house.

M and C: Trees in the pool; no significant house damage.

J and H’s new house: Tree through the roof. Evidently, it crashed completely through the two-story house. No significant damage to the “tree house” garage apartment where they live now.

Aunt B and R: The tail end of their balcony was clipped off by a falling tree.  Storeroom in back was also hit by a falling tree.

J and D: No significant house damage.

S and S: One window out, other than that, no big house damage.

Aunt G and Uncle L’s house seemed to be o.k.; storeroom in back was hit by a tree.

The men said most of the trees in D’s yard are gone, including the pecan tree. Reports are that Mrs. S’s house [neighbor] is split in two.

They are taking lots of pictures. We’ll try to e-mail some of them to you all when we get a chance.

Thanks very much for all your kind thoughts and prayers. A bunch of cousins are there. Has anyone heard from C B [near Beaumont, TX] and Aunt J?

 

Just before Hurricane Rita

It would be so nice to write about something besides hurricanes.

This is from a cousin in Baton Rouge a few hours before Hurricane Rita hit. It gives you a feel for what people are living through.

Dear cousins:

Thank you for all of your nice notes and offers to relocate.

I'm writing to give you a quick update on our Lake Charles relations, etc.
and their whereabouts.  Here is the rundown:

-D + F are staying with DE in Baton Rouge
-B + R are staying with DE in Baton Rouge
-G and L are staying at L's sister-in-law's house (I don't know her name) here in Baton Rouge
-M + Family are in Gretna, LA with Cousin F (from Dad's side of
family)
-C + Family are with M (90 percent sure of this)
-J + Family stayed in Houston last night, but were supposed to leave for San Antonio at 6:00 a.m.
-L + Family stayed in Houston (but maybe will go with J?)
-A K. + Family are staying at DE's
-J, D + Family are staying with D's brother E in Baton Rouge
-S + S and Family are staying with S's brother D in Baton Rouge
-J + Family are at my house
-All of the D I family who were in Lake Charles are now at J I's house in Baton Rouge
-Mr. and Mrs. B (A's parents) are here in Baton Rouge staying at their son's house
-I don't know about J C or the Bs [who live outside Beaumont, TX] or Aunt J - hope all are out of harm's way and well
-Dad's sister and family who were evacuees from New Orleans decided to go to
Jackson, Miss.

Last night we barbequed at D and C's house.  The DKs, JKs, J Is, B, R, D and F were all there.  It felt like [a summer vacation].  I'm at work today, but I have the feeling D and C's house will be the command central for the rest of the weekend.  The latest report I have heard is that Rita is supposed to hit sometime late tonight around Port Arthur, TX.

Here are some numbers if you are trying to get in touch with any of these evacuees:

[list of 15 phone numbers]

Communication has been sketchy lately and our cell phones AND land-lines work sporadically.  Hurricane Katrina really messed up all communications down here in a big way.  If calling doesn't work, the best way to definitely get a message across to someone is via text messaging on their cell phone. I'm working on restoring my home email: [ ] and O's home email is [ ] (D, C and I are all at our respective work this morning).

Baton Rouge should do well in this Hurricane.  There is no real danger of flooding because of the elevation and location of the city.  The only real danger is from wind damage and/or tornados that tend to spin off Hurricane's
on the eastern side.  Right now, we're expecting 60 mph winds which qualifies as "Tropical Storm" winds.

Meanwhile, we Baton Rougians are enjoying visiting with our Lake Charles relations.  Tonight we'll most probably be at D's again.  I'm planning on marga-RITA's and Hurricanes for the occasion.  I've already figured out how to hook my blender up to my car battery in case we lose power.

Keep praying for Lake Charles; people here are upbeat but pretty nervous about its survival.  Love, M