Home smashed: For one family, Hurricane Laura the 3rd strike

Brley Beard calls Hurricane Laura his third strike. In 2005, Rita pushed a foot of floodwaters into his white, wooden home in Hackberry, Louisiana, a tiny community in Cameron Parish 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Gulf of Mexico. Next came Ike in 2008, which pushed water up to floor of long mobile home where his daughter and two granddaughters live on same property.

Laura outstripped m both. It tore his house entirely off its foundation and dropped it a few feet away. trailer where his daughter, Nicole, lives with her two daughters was torn apart, walls demolished to reveal a mix of clos, belongings, and wooden planks. About only things still in ir place were a canoe and a garbage can, tied to a steel grill buried in ground.

A retired welder who worked at many of refineries that dot Louisiana coast, 62-year-old Beard climbed through debris, laboring with two artificial knees. After several minutes working to turn off property’s water lines, he sat on a fallen log and wiped sweat from his brow.

“I got no or place,” he said. “This is all I got.”

Across Cameron Parish, coastal parish where Hurricane Laura crashed ashore early Thursday, residents dug through what was left of ir belongings, covered now-stripped roofs with tarps, and took stock of damage.

Category 4 storm packed 150-mph (240-kph) winds and a storm surge that Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said was as high as 15 feet (4.5 meters). So far 16 people in Texas and Louisiana have died because of storm; more than half of those were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from unsafe operation of generators. President Donald Trump visited Louisiana and Texas on Saturday to show his support and assess damage.

Edwards called Laura most powerful hurricane to strike Louisiana, a shocking assessment in a state where Hurricane Katrina me landfall on August 29, 2005. Out in western Louisiana it is storm that came ashore a month after Katrina — Hurricane Rita — that evokes strong memories.

damage wrought by Laura reminded many residents of Rita, which me landfall in parish and wiped out many communities entirely, leing to one of largest evacuations in American history.

Nicole Beard h her second daughter by Caesarean section two weeks before Rita hit. “I evacuated for Rita with a newborn baby and stitches in my stomach,” she said.

Many people never returned to Cameron Parish, whose population fell 30% in 2010 census, first after storm. Beards’ next-door neighbors left for good. But Beards stayed.

Most people in Cameron Parish said y got out ahe of Hurricane Laura, a storm that forecasters warned was “unsurvivable.”

Roberta Holmes, 67, was one of very few who decided to ride out hurricane on Gulf Breeze Beach, on Cameron Parish shoreline. Standing on her deck overlooking Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, Holmes said she sat in a red lear recliner next to a window facing water. She was confident that home rebuilt after Hurricane Rita was strong enough to withstand this storm.

Her home ended up suffering just minor damage, though storm did uproot two palm trees she planted in front — which she christened “Rita” and “Ike.”

“I knew what it would take to survive,” she said.

Now that floodwaters have receded, Highway 27 leing from Lake Charles into Hackberry and or small towns closer to Gulf was a bustle of activity as utility workers and people pulling trailers or boats drove back and forth. shelves were largely bare at Brown's Grocery Store, across street from Beards' property, and re's been no electricity to pump gas.

Not far away is a sprawling liquefied natural gas facility that Trump visited in 2019.

Beards weren’t sure yet how y would rebuild. Brley Beard lives on Social Security, and Nicole Beard works at a local alligator farm that ships hides internationally.

She has applied for federal aid and is hopeful that volunteers and faith groups that ordinarily respond to disasters will be able to help m clear wreckage.

For now, y are sifting through ir jumbled belongings for whatever can be salvaged, leaving food for ir cat which has so far refused to come out from under rubble. Nicole’s daughters filled a garbage bag each with clos. She found her high school gruation tassel inside trailer, her class year of 1999 shining in gold against blue thre.

Her daughters insist that y stay in Cameron Parish. But she said: “I don’t know how many times you can restart from scratch."