News from the Road

Yesterday we drove through west Louisiana and into Nederland, Texas. There's no power on the Texas side anywhere except for a couple gas stations right on the I-10. We're now in Port Arthur and finding the worst hit areas, but I'll blog this out in sequence of our trip.

The wind damage is not so severe as with Rita and Katrina. Not even close, but some towns received a lot more storm surge than they did 3 years ago.

We did not visit, but Daphne German was in Laplatte, Louisiana last night and reports whole neighborhoods still underwater there.

After waiting through a lot of traffic (Texas plates headed home) we checked out Lafayette, and New Iberia and found no obvious problems there.

Delcambre, Louisiana has some flooding from storm surge. It had receeded enough that many people were already cleaning out their homes, but some roads were still flooded so we couldn't get out to the lower, extremely rural areas.

We drove west through Lake Charles finding minor wind damage, but most power is on, stores are open, and all is actually more normal there than in Ohio.

We spoke with Brian Spicer in Sulfer, Louisiana who has been running volunteer ops in West Louisiana since 2005 says most areas are OK, but he has heard from many residents of Cameron who have been rebuilding the last three years that their town is wiped away again. Even homes with 15 foot stilts (new building code) had water in them. They are in hotels he says. This area will need assistance in the weeks ahead, but there is little we can do now and can't get into the area yet.

Brian has met with 30 families from Cameron today and new information from ariel and boat surveys reinforces that the community was almost totally destroyed. They would like to have camping gear, stoves, ice chests, pots, pans, gas cans, insect repellant, probably tents, so they can live out there once they can get back into the area. They hope that will happen in the next couple of days.

We crossed the Texas border and topped off with Diesel. We turned south and drove through Orange (no power, and some wind damage) and into Bridge City. Areas around those towns flooded heavily and scuttlebut has it that many died there, but officials are not saying. We witnessed search and rescue boat and helicopter patrols at the base of the large bridge on the south end of town where we were turned back.

We drove through Beaumont (some power, some wind damage, flooded underpasses) and down into Nederland, TX where Mark Day's wife Jan has a cousin... Yea, it's that convoluted, but yet again God provided us with clean sheets a soft bed, and a tepid shower.

This morning we started in Port Arthur/Nederland area which has some wind damage and no power, but not a lot of structural damage to homes or electrical grid. A policeman, a preacher, and a church secretary we talked to all felt blessed with the outcome, but said Orange and Bridge City would really need help. We made some good contacts who may be able to host volunteers there.

We are attempting to get closer to the Boulivar Peninsula area where there was a lot of damage to assess. We don't expect to find any churches habitable down there though. We were turned back taking a southern route to Sabine Texas where they are only letting in residents, and the guy behind us with his boat who was going to rescue friends from their flooded neighborhood.

We went around another way towards High Island and were blocked by two barges washed on to the road. Dead cattle were in the ditch to the side and dead fish were scattered on the road. Got a pic (of the barges and fish) that'll I'll place here if I can.

We redirected again and ran into a closed floodwall, and after a final detour manged to get back onto the I-10 West of Beaumont.

I'll post updates as we can and as we have cell data service for Internet access.

Tim Hines reports president bush declared today that volunteer expenses would be reimbursed from the government, that we've gotten disaster fatigue and not as many people are volunteering. We hope this is true and await specifics.

Pray for us and Gary Watt's team from Hilltop Rescue as we survey the disaster zone.

Pray for all the storm victims in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky too. While I'm down here, I know many of you, including my family and Mark's are without power and cleaning up their neighborhoods. Be safe!

Servants Unite!
John McGuire