Monday, August 31, 2020

Laura

 Back in my single days, I dated a vicious bitch named Laura.  A hot redhead that lured men to destruction.  I had the good sense to leave her alone.

Belle and I laid down on Wednesday, August 26th, expecting a hurricane.



We were woken rudely at 4:30 am on Thursday, August 27th, when my CPAP machine quit working.  The electricity was off.  We got the day started by looking outside at the howling wind.  At daylight, we had a lull, and I got out the Coleman stove and set it up in the garage.  Belle will have coffee every morning, come hell, high water, or hurricanes.

Laura came onshore near Cameron, LA as a Category 4 hurricane, the worst to hit Louisiana inn 150 years.  She cut a swath of destruction across the western parishes of Louisiana   I have heard nothing from Cameron parish, which is little more than swamp land.  Yeah, folks live there, but they are very resilient ad self-sufficient.  The storm hit Lake Charles  barely diminished.  I have heard estimates that about 80% of the structures in Lake Charles sustained major damage.  

The storm moved into Allen , Beauregard, Vernon parishes at a strong Category 2 hurricane.  That is unheard of.  I heard from the lady who speaks for the Beauregard Elliptical Co-op..  They have 40, 000 electric meters in the parish and none of them were operating.  Transmission and distribution lines are down. Rebuilding will be a multi-week event.

Rapides parish, my home, fared little better.  We were basically thrown back into the late 1800s.  But, as soon as the wind quit howling, you could hear the generators crank up.  With no electricity and temps in the high 90s with 100% humidity, life got miserable very quickly.  However, your car has A/C and is able to charge mobile devices.

Our electrical company, CLECO, undertook a Herculean task of rebuilding thousands of miles of electrical service lines.  They called in crews from adjacent states and got to work doing hard, dangerous work.  in challenging conditions.  Communities pulled together, clearing roads, cutting downed trees, and helping neighbors.

I'm fortunate. We sustained very little damage (a fence is down).  And we were without power for only 39 hours.  Our lights came on at 9:00 pm, Friday, August 28th.  Power is slowly being restored across the parish, but for some folks, this will be a multi-week event.  

All the family is safe, and everyone has electric power to their homes.  A lot of Louisiana is hurting right now.  This has been a total disaster for lots of people.  I heard an estimate on the radio that places the damage at between five and nine billion dollars.  I fear that's low.  Many of us who got lucky sustained damage that no one will never know about.  

I have internet service for the time being.  We'll see how long that lasts.  Life gets a little bit more normal every hour.

5 comments:

Flugelman said...

Glad to hear you and yours are OK.

Steve Sky said...

I'm glad to hear you all made out Ok, and are well. When you didn't post anything beyond last Wed, I was beginning to be concerned.

Eaton Rapids Joe said...

Thanks for posting.

I am very glad that you weathered the storm with little damage.

You did us all proud by helping your neighbors.

Again, thanks for posting.

Old NFO said...

Glad everybody came through okay. My folks up around Many and Negreet got some minor damage, but that's it.

Anonymous said...

Was mentioning to my daughter that you hadn't posted since the storm. Glad you're up and running.
- Rumson