The View from Holly Beach

Or what’s left of it.

We watched a news report before coming down to the beach and the owner of the trailer/restaurant called Meaux’s seafood was interviewed. Her family had an entire restaurant and house on the beach and after the hurricane, only their two palm trees (in the video) were left. The government said she had insufficient damage to receive funds. If that’s insufficient damage no one would have received money.

Just for reference, this is a comparison of the beach before and after the hurricane. The top picture is June 16, 2001 and the bottom picture is September 28, 2005.

The View from Louisiana

I’m back from Louisiana and the trip was even more interesting and worthwhile than I thought. I’ll have some video up soon of a woman telling her story, but here are some pictures for now. These are from Cameron parish, about 45 minutes south of Lake Charles, Louisiana.

I’ve uploaded all my pictures here.

[A boat motor that needs washing]

[The temporary Cameron Library building]

[There are many buildings that people haven't tried to repair or demolish]

[FEMA trailers]

Cutting through red

Things are still going well in Louisiana and I’ve been learning so many new things every day about the people here and the amount of damage that’s impacted their lives. I’ve heard many different stories and most of them involve the government slowing recovery and aid. The huge amount of red tape in FEMA alone is the reason people like the family we’re working with had to live in their trailer for over two years. The government is the reason that a construction liaison from United Methodist Committee on Relief can’t recover from more than $175,000 worth of damage to his store. (The insurance deductible has to be 80% of the total inventory worth and the business must be more than 3 years old.)

The UMCOR employee also said that many government programs that have been started suffer from fraud and corruption because they’re run by private companies. I’m glad non-profits like UMCOR, United Way, Catholic Charities and Red Cross are actually helping. Pictures up soon, I promise.

Work in Progress

Disasters like Hurricanes Rita and Katrina have made such a horrible impact on the people of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Florida and others. But the sad thing is that while these people have been resilient and come back to rebuild their homes and their lives; while they’ve been brought closer and made stronger, people unaffected by the disasters only care for so long.

I’m definitely guilty of this myself. There were cyclones in Myanmar, but I don’t even know what happened and haven’t taken the time to find out or help. When Rita and Katrina happened, I barely contributed anything and until coming here 2 1/2 years later, didn’t take the time to find out the scope of damage and destruction. But I am doing something now, and I feel like it’s at least something.

These trips are always such great learning experiences, beyond Bible study and carpentry work. We drove down to Holly Beach yesterday and saw hundreds of FEMA trailers, slabs of concrete missing houses and boats stuck on land and houses with holes in the roof and mold damage inside. Very few of the houses in Cameron, LA where we’re working survived and many people are still rebuilding and don’t have the money or resources to finish.

The couple whose house we’re working on is very friendly and the wife told us her story today. Videos and pictures will be up soon.

There is technology in Louisiana

The volunteer center we’re staying at in Lake Charles, Louisiana is sponsored by the United Way. It’s actually pretty interesting because the center started as a faith-based program but now that UW supports it they can’t have anything religious in the place. Last year there was a prayer room but now it’s been replaced with a meeting room. It makes sense though since Americorps, Helping Hands and other volunteers come too, rather than just churches. Anyway, this means I can update at night and Twitter during the day. Stay tuned. I’ve just had some great hushpuppies, catfish and shrimp so I’m already happy.