KPLC 7 News, Lake Charles, Louisiana |A Reporter's Notebook: Lake Charles After Rita

A Reporter's Notebook: Lake Charles After Rita

By James Zambroski

10/2/05 - Just One More Thought.

I'm sitting wrapped in a warm-from-the-dryer terrycloth robe, sipping a homemade espresso and staring at the front page of a week's worth of newspapers when my darling wife, Cheryl, resorts to shaking the kitchen table to get my attention.

It wasn't the news of the day that was distracting me and I wasn't trying to duck a conversation, although just prior to her attempts to get me to look up, I sort of heard, somewhere in the background, a cartoon-like voice, a fast-speed, indistinguishable blur of words that sounded like honey bees at work.

I got the coffee to my lips without spilling it, but despite my attempts to begin catching up on the latest news in Louisville, my head was back to Friday morning when we rolled up on Denise Richard outside of what was left of Sacred Heart Church in Creole, Louisiana.

As I got out of the KPLC 7 News Sante Fe model truck, Richard (pronounced Reesch-ard) was shaking, crying, sweating in a sleeveless white blouse streaked with gray mud.

"It's only a dream. It can't be real, it's only a dream," she said to no one in particular as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye with the heel of her hand.

And then, seeing me come into her space, she turned and said the exact same thing directly to me, as if I'd reassure her that her hope was true, that this all was a dream and that I was here, a complete stranger whose only job was to wake her up.

But, of course, that wasn't the case.

Richard has just seen the lake that used to be her house and now, coming up the street a quarter mile, was seeing the wreckage of the church in which she'd been baptized, confirmed and married. People were loading bronze candlesticks, a few mosaic pictures and a plaque commemorating the 1958 rebuild of the church following its destruction by Hurricane Audrey, into the back of a pick up truck.

There was nothing else to save.

When Cheryl finally got my eyes focused on hers, she didn't ask that obvious co-dependent question of, "Are you all right"?

Yeah, I'm all right but I'm not right, just yet.

And Mike, the director from Evansville, Indiana, who flew back and forth with us to Lake Charles, told me it would be like this.

He was a veteran of hurricane havoc, having first spent a week at our sister station in Biloxi before drawing the straw to go to our sister television station KPLC with us to help out there.

And while he's a terrific director, he's no wordsmith.

"When you go back you won't have it," he said Friday evening at an impromptu party that was both farewell to us and good riddance to the first week post Rita, given by these incredible kids at Camp KPLC who have kept that station on the air and, really, kept the only contact going for whomever it is in the southwestern Louisiana viewing area with electricity.

"What I mean is, you won't be able to...I don't know...focus or be with it or something. I'm not explaining myself very well, but you'll know what I mean," he said.

Yeah, Mike, I know what you mean.

I'm thinking of Ruby Dupuie, a woman I met in Oak Grove, Louisiana. She and her family survived the previous all time monster storm, called Audrey. In that 1957 killer hurricane, her dad almost got blown away as he hung onto the roof from inside, trapeze style, defiantly trying to out muscle 160+ miles per hour winds seeking to blow the cover off his house. His wife and two small children were in the attic with him; wind up top, storm surge down below.

He failed, but survived to build an almost hurricane proof house that Rita huffed and puffed and couldn't blow down. We met his daughter as she was handing stuff out of the second floor window to her ex-husband, a cop, standing on a ladder reaching to the top of the pilings on which James Nunez had built a second time to escape storm surge.

It worked; there was only 8 inches of water damage inside the home and Ruby Dupuie was able to retrieve a lifetime of memories still hanging on the walls, likely one of the only homeowners in Cameron Parish to be so lucky, especially since her dad stubbornly refused to rebuild any further away than about a mile from the Gulf of Mexico.

Sitting nearby my daze in my comfortable, colonial two story home in eastern Louisville this fine morning, a hand carved, wooden duck decoy that I've named Rita Ruby Dupuie. It was a gift from that gentle lady, almost an afterthought as we were handing our gear out the window and down the stepladder after she'd told us the story of her hero.

She insisted I take it, part of a collection of decoys her mother had kept for about 60 years. After initially demurring at the offer, I gratefully accepted, knowing that to do otherwise would have been an insult to this woman who had taken us into her home and told us another story of survival, the story of how her dad, James Nunez, had spit in the eye of Rita even though he'd died five years earlier.

We got dressed and headed out to the St. James Art Fair, a big-deal annual event here. The weather was warm, but not Louisiana hot and I thought Cheryl would like it.

I was tired, particularly in my face. Actually, I hate to sleep; think it's a big waste of time, always wonder what I'm missing when I'm sawing logs. But there are limits. When I check the tape of my live shots the day after and notice the bags under my 52-year-old eyes get bigger than usual, I know I need to catch up on some zzzz's. I'm bettin' these babies will look like a chipmunk's cheeks stuffed with winter nuts later this week.

And I've got a small wound on my back. Some bug or something had crawled inside my shirt and bit me on Wednesday; must have been a spider, because the area blistered and was seeping fluid until Cheryl, a PhD nurse, cleaned it and covered it with a bandage.

I'm such a baby for even mentioning it.

But we go out anyways, go early, to beat the crowds. And it's kinda nice, except I'm not right yet.

I'm uncomfortable with so many people so close, particularly since I've just left the ghost town that is Lake Charles, with spotty electric, little running water, a city of 75,000 that was essentially empty on Friday.

Everyone I see as we walk down Louisville streets blocked off for this show wears fresh clothes, has shaved faces and/or perfect make up. And there's no body odor.

Tents and booths line both sides of the boulevard. I kinda freak inside when I see some fabric art wafting in the breeze and recall clothing snagged on ripped up shrubs and knocked over trees in the land that Rita wrecked.

Cheryl's trying to talk to me about her week and I'm doing a better job of staying in the moment, but then, just that quick, my mind heads back down south and I'm wondering if Leroy Richard went back to his hotel 50 miles away (his house is gone) or if he's traipsing through the Creole marsh looking for his daddy's casket.

The U.S. Army has a special team in Cameron Parish specifically assigned to recover remains floated from their graves by the hurricane, but when I was there Friday, they hadn't been to the cemetery behind Sacred Heart and it was a mess.

Leroy's parents were buried in the bottom row of the church mausoleum. His mom's casket was still in place, even though the crypt cover stone had been shattered away. The family had leaned pieces back in place, such as they could.

But his dad's coffin was gone. Back to the marsh, they guessed; maybe completely out to sea. Back to the place he lived and loved his whole life.

"My stomach's in my throat," Leroy said, standing in front of the empty crypt. "You see it, but you just can't believe it."

Yeah, Leroy, I know, know what you mean. I'm not right yet, but I will be. And so will you. Someday.

10/1/05 - Day 6
Random Notes From A Somewhat Fertile Mind

And so now the time has come to say goodbye to Camp KPLC and head back to The Bluegrass, our home state of Kentucky.

During a brief appearance live on the set of Friday’s KPLC 7 News Nightcast, I told anchor Marty Bridges that my stay here in Lake Charles had been a life changing experience. Meant every word; I’ll address that later in this column.

But as I stuff stinkin’ dirty clothes into plastic bags before cramming them into luggage (I’m worried that without hermedically sealing this clothing in a Hefty Bag, fumes from socks and so forth may cause an inflight emergency from within the cargo bay of the corporate plane. Can’t have that), I am aware of a few loose ends from the week with Rita that I want to wrap up.

Dumbest thing that happened in Lake Charles that reminded me of Louisville:

Photojournalist Rick Miller and I were heading back to Camp KPLC after our fourth day in Cameron Parish, Rita’s ground zero, when we were passed by eight blazing, blaring Louisiana State Police cars, followed by two from the Cameron Parish Sheriff’s Office.

We pondered what to do; we knew little of the area save one or two roads that took us to the checkpoint into Rita-Land.

But we also knew something big must have happened and owing to the basics of our job, decided to turn around and follow them, such as we could at speeds exceeding 100 mph. Besides, we knew we’d get one of those good old boys at the checkpoint to tell us what what about what.

Rick’s theory was that someone who had gained temporary admission to their home was refusing to come out, taking a hostage for good measure.

I wondered if one of the responders streaming toward Rita's remnants had been involved in an accident.

But it was over before it got started.

Turns out a sheriff’s deputy had pulled over a plainclothes state trooper driving an unmarked car. For some unknown reason, words were exchanged and pretty soon, both officers were pointing their weapons at each other.

Duh. Cops with big guns and little ... personalities.

Things I packed that I didn’t need at Camp KPLC: Hair gel (oh, please) and TV make up.

Things I didn’t pack but wish I had: a bed pillow; some kind of diversion, like a book, God forbid.

People I don’t think I thanked enough (or at all):

1) à with a bullet: Josie in operations and Garrett in sports, the two people who took me to their respective homes for a shower, thus extinguishing the angry red burn taking over my arm pits and else where.

2) David Williams, Camp KPLC news director and all around general major domo, for basically turning Rick and I loose everyday and trusting that we’d turn good work. Hope we didn’t disappoint, David (he said, gagging over what might perceived as a suck up, but which in fact is genuine, owing to what do I have to gain here)?

On Monday, 48 hours after the storm, no one from Camp KPLC had gotten into Cameron Parish. We had our suspicions about what we'd find but no one had been there, save a brief helicopter flyover.

While we were getting settled in here Sunday night--we'd arrived passed curfew, so we couldn't go out and do any work--the station had Freddie Richard (pronounced Reee-shard), head of the Cameron Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness on air for live updates. Reporter Jeff Tang alertly corralled this guy and found out what we needed to do to get passed his roadblocks.

I wound up in a convoy with Lt. General Russell Honore, the president's guy on the ground here in Louisiana, as we headed south toward the Gulf and ground zero.

The footage photojournalist Rick Miller shot then gave the world their first look at Rita's wrath, because NBC called KPLC the next morning asking for it after it ran locally.

David Williams sent Rick and I back to the parish everyday, which, in retrospect was really the only way to absorb fully and report what was happening down there. THE story was in Cameron.

Thanks, David; forgive my ego for saying 'good call.'

3). Diana Mayo, operations manager at Camp KPLC, who ran our 'dining room' day-to-day. She didn't cook and from how she talked about the food of southern Louisiana, I wish she had, but she road herd on the bunch of us slobs with signs like 'your momma doesn't work here; clean up after yourself' and so on.

4) Vince (a reporter), Jeremy, Renee and Audra (photographers), the core of the young staff here at Camp KPLC, who pushed us, challenged us, grilled us one night during a late, impromptu seminar on the corner of Division and Bilbo Streets, outside the station. The cudos here go to these young lions for taking every single thing they could from us old gray beards while we were in town, plus challenging how we did, what we did. We loved the give and take (more of the take than they realized, but isn't that often the case when one side thinks you're helping them when in fact, they are helping you)?

These guys and gals are the backbone of why this station has stayed on the air continually during this disaster. It seemed all they really needed from us was the permission to absolutely love it. We gave it, mainly because we're jealous--they're doing it.

We have to leave to catch the plane shortly and I want to speak about this life changing experience I've been privileged to undergo while here in Lake Charles.

No baseline human being can see what we've seen and not be drastically affected.

I love what one Alabama National Guardsman told me: "New Orleans was a (screw up); THIS is a disaster."

While no fatalities have been reported as a result of Rita, we've seen plenty of death.

The death of a community. The death of infrastructure. The death of normal, daily routines. The death of commerce. The death of livestock and indigenous wildlife. The death of safety; the death of feeling safe.

And unfortunately, in some cases, the death of the human spirit.

When you see homes pulverized, you see clothes and furniture and books and pictures and papers and toys and cars, boats and trailers crushed, mangled, twisted and blowing in the breeze, you wonder: where are their owners?

Where are these people; what's happened to them, what's going on with them right now?

We eventually met several. Mary Frances Richard, her husband Leroy and their grown daughter, Denise. Lost absolutely everything, from wedding pictures to baptismal certificates to diplomas, to Leroy's collection of cast iron toys, to their homes, their church, everything, wiped out and GONE, taken out to sea or into a marsh miles and miles away by wind and storm surge.

They still haven't found the home of Leroy's son, who lived next door, opposite his sister, on the family's farm compound in Creole, Louisiana.

Even the remains of Leroy's father are missing, floating in his casket, somewhere in the marsh, rudely evicted from his final resting place by Rita.

The Richards have the clothes on their backs and Leroy's pick up truck, that's it, because they're denial made them believe all would be well when they returned from their evacuation. It isn't. The only thing left of their homes are the cast concrete steps that used to go up to the front door and a few idley tossed bricks, shingles, siding and pipe. Even the rubble is blocks, if not miles, away.

When you see cows gone mad from drinking saltwater, here of crews out killing snakes and alligators gone insanely aggressive because they've been blinded by salt water, when you watch military teams scouring the marsh lands trying to recover coffins ripped from the ground, you can't help but be affected.

I know one truckload at a time, the rubble of Rita will be hauled away. I just wonder if the light in human eyes has been extinguished by monster winds and horrific storm surge.

I hope not.

See ya, Camp KPLC; you rock.

9/29/05 - Day 5
Coming Home

Friday promises to be an emotionally wrenching day for many Calcasieu and Cameron Parish residents as they get their first in-person look at what Hurricane Rita did to their homes.

Even though six days after the catastrophic storm there is virtually no electricity or running water in the Lake Charles area -- affecting almost 200,000 people -- parish, state and federal authorities are relenting to growing pressure to let people go home.

But the visits will be brief and temporary. Officials are calling the policy to let people into both parishes -- lifting previous orders declaring the areas closed -- "Look and Leave," because dusk to dawn curfews remain in effect. Residents will have to be out by 7 p.m., although Hal McMillian, President of the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury (county commissioners) said "nothing" will be done to people who refuse to re-evacuate under the curfew.

Some folks have already been to their homes this week. Selected residents who showed up at roadblocks, particularly in Cameron Parish, which was all but destroyed by Rita, have been escorted to their property by police.

Ruby Dupuie is one such returnee we ran into in Oak Grove, a costal community in southern Cameron Parish, facing the Gulf of Mexico. Her home remained standing and suffered only moderate damage because of a decision her father made almost 50 years ago.

Dupuie was less than a year old when Hurricane Audrey, a Category 4 storm that killed hundreds in 1957, roared through on little notice. Dupuie, her brother, mother and father chose to remain in their home, which was near where she now lives, as Audrey came in.

Knowing that a storm surge was probably on its way, the family huddled in the attic as winds sounding as if they came from the belly of the earth roared overhead.

"My dad was worried that the roof was about to come off. He was holding onto the rafters; the nails and wood were stuck in his hands; blood was running down to his elbows," Dupuie said through a trickled tear as she leaned out a window of her home.

The family survived Audrey but their home was destroyed. Dupuie's father, James Nunez, a Korean War veteran, game warden and self-described daredevil who died on July 4, 2000, vowed to rebuild a house that was hurricane proof.

When he erected new housing following Audrey, he built a single story, L-shaped, frame home on pilings about 15 feet off the ground. Perhaps remembering how Audrey lifted the roof like an umbrella caught in the wind -- with him hanging on -- he tied down the roof of his new house with braided steel bridge cables, anchoring both ends in the concrete footers holding the pilings, then looping the cable up and around the rafters and down to the other side.

Turnbuckles were added to tighten the inch thick lines as needed.

"That way, he knew that if he was too old (when the next big hurricane struck) or if he wasn't here and we couldn't get out, that we'd be safe," his daughter said.

As Rita approached last week, Dupuie and her 70-year-old mother headed north and east toward Lafayette. "We left -- it's the men who just can't stand to evacuate," Dupuie said.

After the storm pounded through and left, Dupuie returned to the home of her childhood to see what, if anything, could be salvaged.

Amidst the rubble and utter destruction wrought by Rita stood the house her father had built in advance of the category 3 monster he knew would someday return to his beloved piece of the Gulf coast. Inside, she found a lifetime of pictures and mementos largely unscathed, an anomaly in this Rita ravaged parish.

The family's small herd of cattle was gone, either washed out to sea or part of the roving bands wranglers have been rounding up all week. Tools and other items stored in the space created by the pilings -- what we up north might call a walkout basement, albeit without walls -- were also smashed and swept across the countryside.

And while lots of furniture and appliances inside the house were shoved and broken by the wind, the floor only got about 8 inches of storm surge. Framed photos, including a pictorial shrine to her dad in her mother's bedroom, remained unscathed.

Since this is one of the few remaining, if not the ONLY house in lower Cameron Parish not obliterated by Rita, one gets a rare chance to see the footprint of the storm surge; how it moved and worked.

The house sits about a mile from the Gulf coast, with wetlands, marshes and a gravel road between it and the sea. The family had stacked some of their higher end appliances and furniture inside the elevator that ran from the ground up to the first floor, locking the car there before they left. The water came up through the shaft and blasted those items through the door, hurling them against the wall of the den.

In Dupuie's mother's bedroom, which faces the Gulf, the storm surge smashed the windows in a big wave, but almost immediately subsided, as if that particular burst of energy ran out three feet inside the room. We know this by the brown stain that covers about a 5 foot square corner of ceiling tiles adjacent to the window. The roof overhead is intact, with no leaks.

Pictures on the wall near the window, in frames covered with glass, show a water stain on the bottom half, but the photograph is undamaged and the art remained hanging in place.

After that wave, Rita sent a sheet of mud and ocean water across the floor, but this one did not pound the house as had the former. The carpet is soaked and coated with about an inch of slime; a stain on the wall marks a somewhat jagged line about 8 inches up, but only occasional tables were moved; the mattress is dry and pictures on all three walls, including the previously mentioned photo collage of James Nunez's life, remains intact.

A shadow box containing some of the former game warden's handguns still hangs where it was placed years ago, but the weapons were knocked off their individual hooks and lay near the bottom of the box, as if they'd been confiscated and thrown into a stack by wind raiders of the storm.

In the next room, a bookcase containing porcelain and ceramics, including a collection of the Chicago Cows, remained standing up right with nary a crack.

Dupuie's prized possession, the American flag that draped her daddy's coffin, still sits untouched in a display case on a shelf about five feet above the muck.

And the roof held, although a few shingles were gone, as was some of the aluminum siding, but James Nunez's cables are still solidly in place.

This was our fourth trip to the ravages of Rita in Cameron Parish and as we walked through Dupuie's house, it felt as though this hellion hurricane was talking to us, showing us, taking us inside the madness in her method.

It was a calling card of how she came and left; almost a tip of the hat to the house that Nunez built and couldn't be knocked down by a reprobate named Rita.

"When I first came in here, I heard my dad saying 'see, I told you, have faith in your old dad. I told you you'd be all right,'" Dupuie said.

"He's a hero. He's not here right now, but he's a hero.

"9/28/2005 - Day 4
FEMA Schmeemah

To the surprise of absolutely no one, FEMA is taking it on the chin in some quarters over its response to Hurricane Rita in the Pelican State.

While Calcasieu and Cameron Parishes remain officially "shut down" and officials continue on a daily basis to discourage evacuees from returning to their homes, residents tired of being in shelters, out of money or just plain anxiety-ridden over the fate of their domiciles are returning to Lake Charles and surrounding areas.

This despite word on Wednesday that it will likely be at least a month before residential electrical service is fully restored. The utility here reports about 1,600 poles and 1,700 generators (those big flashlight battery shaped things near the top) are on the ground. And that's not talking about wires to individual homes.

With daytime temperatures routinely in the high 90s, conditions will likely remain primitive for the foreseeable future.

For reasons that are unclear, at least officially and on the record, people in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods seem to be devoid of government supplied food and water.

In North Lake Charles, an area not unlike Louisville's West End, one faith based, private charity served 800 hot meals to all takers on Monday and Tuesday.

"I haven't seen FEMA; haven't seen anyone come through here except a couple of officers enforcing that curfew thing," said Lachaunte August, who was inside her home with Rita crashing down around her.

She sent her kids out of harm's way but stayed behind in order to be with her mother.

"We need help. We need food, sheets, clothes, everything," said Betty Latigue, an evacuee who returned to her North Lake Charles home to get medicine for her family.

"We called (FEMA) and they said they'd send us a package. Course the mail is shut down," said April St. Julien, who had to stay because she didn't believe her car was reliable enough to take her and her family out of Rita's way.

Friendship Charities spent the day Wednesday going up and down neighborhood streets with a van full of the now haute cuisine Meals Ready to Eat and cases of water, sometimes going door to door with their offerings.

They needn't have worried. Most people -- the charity estimates 20 percent of the population is in their homes -- rushed to the street to receive the survival packages.

Some neighborhoods are getting more attention from federal and local relief than others, said Shay Shields, a volunteer making the deliveries.

Asked how much food their outdoor kitchen had received from FEMA, Mary Pearce, a spokeswoman for the charity, said that none had been provided by that agency or any other arm of government.

"We are a totally separate organization," she said. She declined to speculate on why no trucks from FEMA had rolled into this part of town except to repeat that there is grinding poverty in the area.

Don Jacks, a Homeland Security spokesman for FEMA, said there is a misconception about the agency's role in disasters like Rita.

"We are not the first responders in a situation like Rita," he said. "In the first four days, local government is the first responder, them and agencies like the Red Cross and faith based charities."

Jacks said he had not heard of complaints about FEMA response in Calcasieu Parish.

"We've been preaching for years that people need to be self-sufficient for the first four days of a disaster like Rita. They need to have enough water to last at least 96 to 120 hours," he said.

He also faulted residents who did not heed mandatory evacuation orders issued by local and state officials.

Like it or not, FEMA has probably created its own trick box over its ongoing public relations nightmare.

There is a performance expectation that is not within the mission of the agency, Jacks said.

Really? Well, I wonder how that idea got started?

Call me simple, but when your citizens are in crisis, what could be so hard about getting food, water and ice to people who happen to have stayed -- for whatever reason -- in their own homes during the hurricane?

Take what they've done here at Camp KPLC, our home away from home, the only television station in Lake Charles area.

And before we go further, I need to correct a possible misconception over our circumstances in the land of no electricity, running water or flush toilets.

It's true -- showers are a premium, currently we're bathing about once every two and a half days. And we've moved up on the toilet facilities to the infamous porta potties I told you about yesterday.

But when it comes to food, we're actually eating quite well. While there's no stove here at the station, we do have microwaves and the charcoal grill seems to be running all day long.

Not only that, local restaurants are sending pans of their specialities over almost as a public service (I mean, who else are they going to sell to?).

Shrimp and crawfish etoufee, seafood gumbo, jambalya, dirty rice and all sorts of brisket, sausage, pulled pork and so on.

The grill has been run by various management types (sales) who presently are without a gig and just yesterday, a guy pulls up in his motor home and says he'll do all the cooking provided someone else supplies the ingredients. Way cool; from what I ate for dinner last night, this fella might be Paul Prudhoumme's brother who never quite made it or Emeril Lagasse's Bam! master.

Wednesday morning, there's a knock at the door and this guy from McDonald's came in with a box full of McGriddles, which is a pancake sandwich with sausage in the middle. It's not what I like for breakfast (greasy eggs, greasy potatoes, greasy bacon) but the kids here snapped them up and it was really, in my mind, more about unsolicited community spirit.

I just dug it.

But back to my confession: The truth is, I'm likely to gain a few pounds during this declared state of emergency. And really, what could be more shameful then that? But it's like being on board a cruise ship -- the food is out 24/7.

My point is, FEMA outta come over to our place and take a lesson, make a model, copy the KPLC Action Plan.

They brought air mattresses in this morning. The ice never runs out; cases of Gatorade, soda, water stacked to the ceiling. There's a table with all kinds of toiletries, batteries, men's underwear, fer gawds sake; an industrial sized bottle of Gold Bond powder (I'm lovin' that one, no doubt), socks, tee shirts, terry cloth hand towels, every over the counter cold pill known to mankind, hand sanitizer, first aid kit, air freshener (oh, what's the point), baby wipes (extremely popular) and water bottles.

And I'm betting there's a ladies-only table somewhere in the building.

Did I mention the snacks, the chips, the granola bars, the oodles of noodles stuff and every variation therein?

And we have a shopping list as well: it goes up in the morning and by the afternoon, someone from here has gone to Sam's and stocked up. They even brought cat and dog food and litter in after it wound up on the list.

I'm always kind of embarrassed when I have to give credit to the suits (probably because I think I should be one and am kinda ticked that I'm not), but the powers that be both here and at our corporate offices have done it right.

All the rah-rah crap you always hear about being family and we're a team and we appreciate everything you do -- these guys have really stepped up and put their money where their mouth is. As that fellow in the Jurassic Park movie used to say, "spared no expense."

Why am I so shocked? Dunno, but gotta own it.

Except for showers, this television station, which broadcast live during the hurricane from their 5th floor evac headquarters at the local hospital and has stayed on the air continually throughout, save a brief shutdown Sunday morning when they moved back here and had to do maintenance on the generator, has become totally self-sufficient for the nearly 60 employees camped here.

And I'm betting when the next monster wind rips through this town, Jim Serra, the general manager, will come up with some kind of portable shower and put it outside between the fuel depot, generator and dumpster.

So why can't the most powerful government on earth at least get ice to people living in near caveman conditions?

Don't tell me about rules and regulations; don't tell me about Congressional mandates; don't brag about how well you've done already. Extraordinary circumstances requires extraordinary measures. Brains that put us on the moon and send rockets to Mars can't think outside the box a little when it comes to poor people, poor AMERICANS without food?

Camp KPLC knows that it can be done. Why don't you, FEMA?

9/27/05 - Day 3
Still Reeling From Rita

Sometimes it's the little things that can turn the corner in a disaster: porta potties were delivered on Monday to our home away from home at station KPLC in Lake Charles, Louisiana and I got to take a hot shower for the first time in three days.

Walgreen's opened for business; Sam's Club, too. God bless capitalism, even on a limited scale. Frankly, I'm shocked that the corporate types aren't looking at the bottom line since there are so few customers available right now. But thanks just the same, fellas.

We saw more parts of this southwestern corner of The Bayou State that looked like an atom bomb had been dropped on it; the area remains without electric power; the region is still under a dawn to dusk curfew and, like some kind of life imitating art ala Twilight Light Zone, there are no people.

Water pressure is coming back, but what's coming out of the tap is only suitable for bathing. Under normal circumstances, the authorities would issue a boil water advisory after pressure in the lines has dropped the way it has here. Waterborne intestinal upset is the last thing we need, so we're still swilling the vintage Dannon du Spring, et. al.

Is there anyone on the planet that doesn't believe a porta potty has to be one of the most disgusting confined spaces on earth? A septic tank on wheels with a toilet seat thrown in. Charming.

Personally, I try to hold my breath throughout the entire visit, but at my age, it's rarely a quick in and out.

'Nuff said.

But having, ah, facilities and getting to wash off the sweat and grime from day long 100 degree heat somehow makes this ordeal a little less daunting.

How it happened (at least the shower part): one of the operations employees lives in a city called Sulphur, about a half hour drive from Lake Charles. Her house has no electricity but there is water, and a gas fired hot water tank. Yeeeeehawwww.

She drove Rick Miller and I to her home, let us get showers (I went first but saved him plenty of hot water), then raced back to the city about a half hour past curfew. We made it just fine; clean and out of jail.

Gasoline was available at three stores in Calcasieu Parish: a Sam's Club, some kind of super fuel national chain and at a mom and pop convenience store near the parish line. The owner had a big generator that survived Rita; they charged $3.09 a gallon and sold out 5,000 gallons in about four hours.

We did a story on Patty Gaspard's store; she told me she had no idea if she'd make money or lose it at that price but really didn't care and wasn't the least bit interested in jacking the price.

"It's not the right thing to do," she told me tearfully. "These people need gas and I need to stay busy."

Her home is under water. They got there by boat, her husband pushing it about a mile. Mercifully, the tractor and generator were on slightly higher ground. The store became a focal point (and rich source of Rita stories) for the entire surrounding community.

Because almost all citizens evacuated ahead of Rita, there are no municipal or state employees here to clear debris. Consequently, almost every block has downed trees, smashed homes, destroyed wires and wrecked buildings and no one seems to be working on them.

That, of course is in Lake Charles, 50 miles or more from ground zero of the hurricane's eye. What stands out is the enormous power and size of this storm. While there was no storm surge this far north, there is wind damage in virtually every block of the city. Incredible.

KPLC's weather center has suddenly become a routine stop during the work day (and night). You ask about any new storms; you scan the satellite pictures for telltale red blobs anywhere between here the African coast. And mother of mercy, there are some.

An interesting story in the months ahead will be how many cases of post traumatic stress disorder health experts treat; there's gotta be tons. People we've talked to have a terrible fear of the skies these days. Who can blame them.

Officials assure us that recovery work is underway even though we don't see the streets clogged with utility trucks. They continue to implore people not to return just yet and cars are being turned away from interstate ramps.

But the enforcement appears spotty; some folks are coming back, albeit to a Spartan existence sans airconditioning, refrigeration and basic commerce. Home is home, Rita or not.

Armed guards are posted at gun shops, some liquor stores and check cashing businesses. One thing I keep forgetting to ask is what became of the money in smashed ATM machines; smashed that is by the storm, not looters.

Speaking of looters -- privately the police say there have been a few cases, but what really has them concerned is when the population begins to return in larger numbers. They say most residents don't understand how primitive conditions are likely to remain for weeks and months and they theorize that will turn large numbers of people desperate. Looting comes later rather than now, they tell us.

The military is camped at shopping mall parking lots. Let's face it, camping is their thing; they have it all, including an outdoor shower rigged between two heavy duty tracked vehicles, shielded by a blue vinyl tarp stretched between them.

Cameron is the parish seat of Cameron Parish (I'm told calling the political subdivision a parish is a throw back to the Catholicism of the region). The city is an industrial port town of about 3,500 inhabitants. Oil and gas terminals are the business here; there is a 10 mile shipping channel that connects to the Gulf of Mexico. Roads were finally clear enough and the storm surge water receded sufficiently for us to get to the heart of town.

The view was horrifyingly breathtaking. Not a single home or business is habitable; very few appear to even be worth repairing.

Three electric transmission stations, which feed power to 10,000 customers are down; two severely damaged and the third, not anywhere to be found. These are the feeder lines which send power to lines upon lines upon lines into homes. Those are destroyed as well.

The electric cooperative people (and all officials or their spokes people involved in this emergency) decline to say how long it will be until the power is back on, which of course, is the number one question.

The vagueness smacks of some how-to-deal-with-the-media-in-a-disaster seminar somewhere; they all keep talking about clearing debris before they can begin to work on rebuilding. But when you ask how long it would take to build these systems from scratch and without the wreckage, they decline to answer.

We had some pencil necked geek official from Allen Parish emergency ops write and complain that we didn't give him some phone number when he called the station the other day. Ginned a break; we're eating Dinty Moore out ta the can and this guy's whining because someone didn't have a phone number committed to memory. The station G.M. let him have it, gawd bless him, and gave him his personal cell phone for future inquiries.

Stray cattle remain a problem. Wranglers are rounding them up but there are so many that it's a race against time. One farmer said he had 800 head grazing in Cameron Parish; he's found 30 of them. The animals, thirsty and hungry, are drinking salt water. It causes a brain hemorrhage and they die within an hour. We saw one go down just as we passed it, standing on the highway toward Cameron. Awful.

You see something like this and you wonder what would have happened had Rita been a category 4 or 5 storm. The short answer (theory, I guess) is that the landscape would have been wiped clean.

The military has responded in force, sending in troops and heavy equipment to begin opening roads and do damage surveys. But maybe a little too much force. Lt. General Russell Honore shouted at troops he passed along the road to "put down those (expletive deleted) guns" as they marched in formation.

The Cameron Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness is getting help from them--principally in communications. Helicopters buzzing across the sky has become the tour de jour.

President Bush visited Lake Charles and flew over hurricane devastation today, delivering what's become the standard help-is-on-the-way-but-this-is-going-to-take-time message. Thanks, Mr. President, but I wish you'd have come by to say hello in person, world affairs and problems not withstanding.

And the hurricane news coverage has stopped being around the clock. Whoever's watching can now get a dose of Dr. Phil in addition to the regular evening news.

Residents in nine parishes are now eligible for a $2,000 cash grant from FEMA. The President said that 10,000 operators (no joke) are standing by to take the information.

I finally had a chance to spend some money in Lake Charles. That mom and pop gas station I mentioned earlier was selling things other than fuel to customers, but since the owner and her family were living inside the business, her nephew and newest employee was taking orders at the door, then bringing goods and taking cash to customers waiting outside.

I spent $20 bucks on five packs of cigarettes. I know, I know.

But with that and a shower at least every other day, I think I'll make it until the plane comes to bring us home on Sunday.

9/26/05 - Day 2
Lovely Rita...Not

Utility poles splayed like a handful of uncooked spaghetti dropped to the floor.

No water, except the plastic bottled variety that's H2O only because it's wet and the label says so.

Toilets that aren't really that, seeing as how the evidence can't be flushed away.

Destruction and damage of some kind block after block after block.

Welcome to Lake Charles and Cameron Parish Louisiana, victims of a 'lady' named Rita.

It's a ghost town, with most of 75,000 people gone, more than 200,000 in the metropolitan region, smartly,voluntarily, evacuated. All that's left are M-16 toting law enforcement to enforce a dusk-to-dawn curfew, some locals many consider a few bricks shy of a load and lunatic journalists, no, conscience recorders and reporters of Mother Nature's rage,the wrath of Rita. This station is committed to staying on the air, for whomever is watching and we're here to help make that happen.

To be accurate, our building has electricity, powered by a locomotive-sized generator you can hear 24/7. Plastic jugs of diesel lined up beside it -- testimony to general manager Jim Serra's charm over the telephone.

Perhaps stung by criticism of a slow response to Katrina, the evil older sister of this region's current nemesis, the federal government responded with a presence that did everything but return power, water and people today to the Bayou of the South.

Lt. General Russell Honore, the Bush administration's de facto hurricane czar, came to this part of Louisiana to lead a convoy of inspection into ground zero of Rita's strike, the parish, nee county, called Cameron that is due south of our location here at station KPLC in Lake Charles.

The General, a cigar-chomping morph of perhaps Patton without the ivory handled sidearms or even a MacArthur wearing desert fatigues rather than the visored cap and corn cob pipe, swept into the parish with an entourage that included troops from Ft. Bragg's 82nd Airborne, flown in five Blackhawk choppers that landed in the parking lot of a nature reserve on Highway 27, south of Lake Charles.

This is the staging area for more than 3 dozen vehicles that include heavy equipment to move trees off the main highway, air boats trailered behind mega-pickups, the odds-on officialdom here to assess, and of course, at least four ambulances parked silently on stand by.

We were there, not necessarily to greet His Swaggerness, but to hitch a ride in the long line moving south toward absolute ground zero, Holly Beach, Louisiana, an area natives consider a community, but which in fact may be only a summer place of trailers parked atop short stick telephone poles.

We were able to climb aboard a contraption that looked very much like a dune buggy on mega-steroids, a vehicle with 10-foot rubber tires and a big block V-8, hand crafted by a guy named Ed Mendle, a retired firefighter lately of Key Largo, FL., who came to Rita's ravage, he said, to return the kindness of Creoles who flooded the Sunshine State after Hurricane Andrew in the early 90's.

"It's only right," he told me.

His "vehicle" was capable of search, rescue, recovery and assessment where airboats and such couldn't reach. And even though the parish is sparsely populated, dotted with clumps of houses in tiny little communities all the way to the Gulf, there is likely a need.

As we traveled down Highway 27, the further south we got, the worse the damage. Utility poles that leaned at a 45 degree angle 50 miles inland were now lying absolutely flat on the ground. The storm surge had receded only enough to make the road passable, water standing 12 feet and more, stretching over 1000's of square acres that formerly were just marsh in the rainy season and wetlands during drought.

Every single building has some sort of damage. The ones standing look like cantaloupes with the seeds scooped out: you see right through them.

Cars and pickups flipped and twisted, their tires sticking out of the water.

Graves washed open, the famed above ground burial crypts of Louisiana smashed apart, the slabs now scattered apart like a deck of cards tossed by a loser.

Animals dead everywhere, cattle mostly but others, too. Stray dogs looking for new friends. Rita tore down fences and pasture wire, the bovine herds roaming at will; many become sick with salt water.

Local cowboys bring trailers and horses to corral the errant beasts. We saw 35 head being driven across a high, arched, four lane bridge that crossed the bayou toward Creole and Cameron, both cities south of Lake Charles. Several dodged the pens and horse backed cowboys and chose to take a swim. Enter the airboats and lassos.

Surreal.

Even where there was no community for this category 3 storm to smash, the shore line is torn up with large clumps of dirt pushed up against the highway.

We turn stories, they get them on the air. Turn stories, get them on the air. It's been 24 hour, wall to wall coverage, but mercifully, that schedule's about to let up in favor of regularly scheduled news.

We're eating fresh each night, often owing to the kindness of strangers and that essential of life, the charcoal grill. Many of us have that glazed, at the gates of hell look, and we stink--see, water, none. But we're still doing our jobs.

Photojournalist Rick Miller informs me that MRE's, Meals-Ready-to-Eat, the military's 21st century C-rations, are the most horrible tasting comestible on earth. What Rick has failed to realize, however, is that you're not just supposed to rip open the package of say, macaroni and cheese and begin munching; the packs have a special envelope to which you add product and water, and a chemical reaction cooks the food.

Probably the funniest moment on this trip actually happened before we left. Our boss, station manager Jeff Hoffman, asked me, rather mother-like, as we were leaving, if we had enough cash.

Sure do, boss, plenty. Now, if I could just find a place to spend it.

9/25/05 - Day 1

I always thought that if they ever sent the company jet for me, it would be because of a big scoop at the White House, a celebrity wedding or to go pick up my check at Publisher's Clearing House.

But the way it turned out, they put me, Jeff Tang, photojournalist Casey Chalmers and Rick Miller on the seven seater Sunday afternoon for a two hour trip to meet some dame named Rita.

We've come to Lake Charles, Louisiana to help our crippled sister station, KPLC, where the staff, in the two days after Rita savaged this area, operated out of a single room at the local hospital, having had to evacuate their station building in the heart of downtown.

Miraculously, they stayed on the air practically around the clock, but now their people need to rest, take stock, change clothes and wonder what's left of the material side of their lives.

The stark reality: Lake Charles, a port city on a lake of the same name, about 40 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, in extreme south western Louisiana, took the brunt of Rita and paid a fearsome price. A staff meteorologist told me they believe the eye of the Category 3 hurricane, which was about 20 miles wide, came ashore exactly at a place in the bayou called Holly Beach, about 35 miles southwest of Lake Charles.

While no one has died--or been found dead, yet--the city of about 75,000 has had it's electrical grid destroyed. By that, we mean feeder lines, the kind you see on those big, steel girder towers out in the country side, have been smashed down. Dozens of them.

There is no running water and of course, no sewers because of it. Parts of the area south--a parish (county) called Cameron--were hit by a 12 to 15 foot storm surge.

But perhaps as a lesson from Rita's evil sister, Katrina, officials estimate that 80 percent of the population heeded evacuation orders and fled north. So house by house searches of flooded areas aren't expected to reveal Katrina's ghastly toll.

Since the Lake Charles airport was severely damaged, we flew into a field at Lafayette, Louisiana, about 60 miles east. As we taxied to the private terminal (where, in my dreams, they'd have rushed the plane with my big Clearing House check), we noticed about a dozen Army Black Hawk helicopters lined up and ready to go.

It took awhile for KPLC to muster the vehicles to come pick us up. Three of their cars are down due to tire damage caused by road debris. And of course, with nothing open, there's no way to get them fixed. Thanks, Rita.

Coming down Interstate 10 into Lake Charles, we see the first police/military presence. All exit ramps are blocked with police cars and military trucks. They don't want people coming back, yet.

At the Lake Charles ramp, I get out and show a Louisiana Highway Patrol officer a letter we brought from Louisville, issued by some muckity-muck in FEMA, explaining that we are to be let through. "Papers, please," which when produced, allowed us to proceed.

It's pitch dark now--no street lights, because of no power--but we can still see remnants of savage winds. We artfully dodge tree limbs, downed lines, twisted aluminum siding, no traffic signals and total darkness as we feel our way to the station.

There is a 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and the police--principally the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Department--are everywhere, mostly with flashing lights on, even though the streets are mostly deserted.

At the station, recharged and repopulated within the previous three hours, people who have been working around the clock are happy to see us and let us know.

There is generator-produced electric, but no running water. Plenty of food, though. Since everyone knew that everything in their refrigerator was head to rot, they all brought their perishables here. The station general manager, Jim Serra, is cooking sausage, hot dogs and chicken breast on the grill, flipping same in between puffs on a decent little cigar.

You get to ignore the ripe smells that evolve from not taking a shower for days. Baby wipes and hand sanitizer are gold.

You bunk down wherever you find space. The premium 'suites'--hallways, offices, breakrooms, etc--are already taken. They're premium because they're air conditioned. We late comers are ensconced upstairs, where the air hasn't reached, but which is quieter and less crowded. I'm currently writing (and will be sleeping) in an office formerly occupied by Jim Reardon, the KPLC general sales manager.

They all make fun of my fold up cot; a last minute borrowing from a neighbor, but it's the closest thing to a Serta I can find.

We are leaving at 5:30 a.m. for Cameron Parish, which we understand it still under several feet of water. Cameron was almost wiped out by Hurricane Audrey in 1957; we'll see how she fared with Rita.

There is a heat advisory of 105 degrees in the morning, but I'm wearing long sleeves and long pants, fearing the blisters that come from the sun blazing off the water.

I've broken out my first pack of baby wipes. My ingenuity will try to wash my hair with a bottle of water over top a trash can.

One thing we've been warned of with Cameron--snakes and alligators, seeking higher ground, aren't in a good mood.