Update about southwest Louisiana flooding

 

a side street
a side street

Tony Sferlazza (Plenty’s Gulf Recovery Program Director), my husband Calvin and I drove to Chauvin yesterday (Wednesday) to check out the flooding. We were unable to reach the Native American reservation further south due to reports of water that had not yet receded and were full of thick mud.

The streets in Chauvin were clear to drive on but many houses and streets were still under water. We saw people with buckets and mops walking through knee-deep water toward their houses. A very ominous scene indeed. Unfortunately we did not have the time to stop and talk to individual families.

We did meet with the executive director of United Saints, a grass roots organization that partners with Hands On and United Force. They have set up camp in a fire station in Chauvin to help people clean up and put blue tarps on roofs. Their plan is to go further south when roads are passable.

My good friends Carol and Mike from United Peace Relief, who I met during Katrina, have been doing hurricane relief work in Baton Rouge for the last two weeks. They will travel with us back to Terrebonne Parish on Sunday, hoping the roads will be passable so we can access the area further south and meet with Chief Albert and the people of the Biloxi-Chitimacha reservation.

Will keep you posted. Am sending a picture

Chauvin, LA
Chauvin, LA

 of the flooding in Chauvin. Everyone’s back yard is bordered by the levee that breached during Gustav and then again with Ike.

 

 Love,

Elaine Langley, RN (Plenty volunteer)