By Curtis Drafton | Veteran Response Team Leader
In our eight (8) years of doing rescue, we have never seen so many hurricanes jump in magnitude as we have in the past two years. Hurricane Laura, within 24 hours of Hurricane Marco, went from a Category 2 to a very high Category 4 storm with winds at 140 miles per hour where we were staged (near south Lake Charles off of Route 210).
The level of damage to the properties where we were could be likened to the damage seen in Hurricane Michael in Panama City, FL (which was also recently flooded).
The people in Cameron, Hackberry and Lake Charles (as well as several other cities) lost everything. For the older brick structures that did weather the storm well (most of which were social gathering places, not homes) many may not have running water or electricity until November. *Per the Parish utility company Entergy who we worked beside. Note: 70% of power poles were snapped in half or uprooted and broken as well.
Our mindset for this disaster is: the families need everything. From baby clothes to hygiene, food and tarp for their roofs.
Their new reality is one of truly having to start over. It will take 2-3 years for these towns to re-stabilize their communities.
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