KPLC 7 News, Lake Charles, Louisiana |Cameron Police Jury grapples with recovery

Cameron Police Jury grapples with recovery

October 17, 2005
By Theresa Schmidt

So many problems, so many issues for officials and residents from Cameron Parish to resolve since hurricane Rita ravaged their area. Slowly, steadily people are trying to put their lives back together. But even access to their property-- what they have left of it-- is hard to come by. "The look and leave, we went through two past weekends of look and leave, and we're going to actually start our cleanup this Wednesday. And what we'd like to do is every Sunday, the corps and their prime contractor are going to shut down to allow residents to return on Sunday just so they can visit their property."

Cameron Parish Emergency Operations Director Freddie Richard says the roads are too dangerous to let people come and go as they please."  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is beginning clean up of public property and residents will be allowed to look and leave on Sundays. But Richard says they will work with people who have a house left to repair: "We have some people who still have their homes left standing that have some damages to them. We're going to work with these people on a permit by permit basis to allow them to do some work with their homes."

Richard says they are also working to make progress as far as housing. "It's a struggle to try to find the property to do this but we think that we've located several pieces of property and we're waiting on the FEMA guys to go and assess them. Some of the trailers are staged at Chennault right now just waiting for this property to be assessed and then we're going to start moving them in."

A milestone announced by Jeff Davis Electric. "They threw the switch this morning. They have a street light in Creole which is a big accomplishment." Welcome and comforting words for people whose burden is so great. 

Within a week wildlife officials expect to have a controlled burn at the Cameron Prairie Wildlife Refuge. That's to get rid of oil pollution there caused by the storm.