Entergy is proud to support programing on LPB and greener practices that preserve Louisiana.

The goal of our environmental and sustainability initiatives really is to ensure that our kids and future generations can be left with a cleaner planet.

Additional support provided by the Fred B. and Ruth B. Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana.

And the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting with support from viewers like you.

Hi, everyone, I'm Kara St.Cyr., from our LPB studios in Baton Rouge, and I'm Andre Móreau.

We're coming to you tonight from Cameron, where a year ago Hurricane Laura came ashore with all of its fury.

One hundred and fifty mile an hour winds, 17 feet plus storm surge.

And we know the damage that it was caused here and then moving into Lake Charles and into Louisiana.

We're going to bring you the stories from people who know those places the best for you tonight and tell you the recovery.

What's happened in the year since then?

How has it gone?

We'll find out.

For now, though, let's send it back to the studios in Baton Rouge and parasite's here.

Thank you, Andre.

Tonight, we have a lot to cover before we take you back to Cameron and Lake Charles.

With a global sigh of relief, the FDA announced this week that Pfizer is now the first vaccine to be approved for people 16 and older.

It's still available under emergency use for kids 12 through 15 years old.

Experts are urging everyone to continue to get their shots so we can flatten this rising curve.

Five thousand new cases and seventy two new deaths have been reported as of yesterday.

And also, we've reached the halfway point of hurricane season in the tropics are waking up.

Forecasters say Tropical Storm Ida has Louisiana in its sights.

And it may be a Category three hurricane when it makes landfall this Sunday or Monday.

The powerful storm could drop up to 20 inches of rain pack winds up to 115 miles per hour and cause major power outages.

So if you haven't already, please make sure you have supplies and a game plan to evacuate.

And now to news making headlines across the state following weeks of criticism.

LSU will now require all students to show proof of vaccination by October 15th.

This comes days after the FDA approved the Fizer vaccine for people 16 and older.

Any students that don't want to get those shots have until September 10th to present formal declarations on why they can't.

In a statement released on Tuesday, LSU President William Tate wrote that any students who opt out of getting the vaccine have to provide Covid tests regularly.

The school is also requiring proof of vaccination for upcoming games.

If you don't have a vaccination card, you'll need to show a recent negative Covid test as Covid cases rise in Louisiana.

Children are also falling victim to the virus.

A 14 year old football player at Baker High School died on Wednesday after getting sick.

Sharon Weston Broome, the mayor of Baton Rouge, said that the boy's death should be an eye opener for the state.

She wrote, quote, Every death from this virus is one met with immense sorrow, especially the passing of a ninth grader from our community.

End quote.

His death comes closely after the death of a one year old.

The Louisiana Department of Health reported that 30 percent of new cases are children.

As the anniversary of Hurricane Laura approaches, concern mounts over the location of gas terminals and Lake Charles.

Retired Lieutenant General Russel Honore held a press conference to ask officials not to allow these terminals to be built in hurricane prone areas.

He argued that a storm could cause a terminal to explode and ultimately destroy parts of the city.

Opponents, to Andre's request, say that the terminals are built to stand any bad weather.

And we also begged the White House for federal aid, requesting that the city take that money and rebuild smarter.

LSU was to wipe away seven million dollars in student debt for a total of 4000 students.

The LSU vice president of enrollment management says that students who enrolled during the pandemic are eligible for the debt forgiveness.

That means people who started in spring 2020 to the present to get parking, tuition fees or even meal plan debts white.

The school is among several other colleges in the state, using federal coronavirus aid to ease the burden of student loans.

If you drive an electric car, you're in luck.

Aitu charging stations are coming to Louisiana soon.

The Department of Environmental Quality is giving out grants to 26 entities to build these stations in different locations around the state .

You can expect to see them at LSU, Xavier University and Southern.

You can also be on the lookout for them in several cities, including Pineville, New Iberia and Baton Rouge.

The project is being funded by the 2016 Volkswagen settlement with the U.S. Justice Department.

When you travel the streets of Lake Charles, you notice something again and again, regardless of what neighborhood you're in.

And that's you see images that look the same from one street to the other, the same damage.

But you realize it's a different shopping center, a different neighborhood of houses.

A lot of blue tarps on the roofs, a lot of damage.

A lot of it still there.

We begin downtown with the mayor of Lake Charles, Nicanor.

I think anxiety is absolutely in the air.

There's a certain amount of PTSD out there.

I mean, that literally, not figuratively.

Lake Charles Mayor Nick Hunter is by nature an optimist, but even an optimist can become discouraged with the kind of year he and the people of southwest Louisiana have endured.

It began with the onslaught of Cat four hurricane long followed six weeks later by Cat two Delta.

Then a major winter ice storm followed a few months later by a record flood for federal.

He declared major disasters and all in a pandemic.

But what hurts the most is the help that was expected to come.

Hasn't, according to Hunter and city leaders before Laura, remember the lake area was one of America's boom towns.

And now and a year from the night Laura struck.

What can you tell people nationwide where you are a year later and what surprises you about it?

What you need?

Just where you are, where things are happening?

That's a really big question.

After a year, I will say that I would have hoped to have had more support from our federal government.

And it took me a while to get there before I wanted to say that publicly, because I don't want to come across as whining or I don't want to come across as a community that simply has their hat in their hand going to D.C. and saying, hey, fix this for us.

Other communities have received supplemental federal disaster aid days, weeks after one singular event.

I'll go back to Hurricane Katrina.

And by the way, they needed it.

And I'm glad they got it.

Ten days after Hurricane Katrina, Washington, D.C. acted with federal supplemental disaster aid.

It happened 30 days after Hurricane Andrew happened, 90 days after Superstorm Sandy.

Here we sit.

Having gone through four federally declared natural disasters more than any other city in American history.

Three hundred and sixty five days later, and we do not have a penny of supplemental disaster aid.

The road the Road Home program happened after Hurricane Katrina.

Over nine billion dollars was funneled through HUD to help reestablish people in sustainable, healthy housing.

After the twenty sixteen Baton Rouge floods, the Restore program filtered down six hundred and fifty million dollars for the same purpose.

Zero, zilch, nada.

After what we've been through for a program similar to Road Home or Restore, what are you told as a reason for that?

That's the most common question I get is why.

I mean, I realize we're in a pandemic, which is huge.

Yeah.

Is that the reason?

It's I think it's a convergence of many reasons.

America has gone through a very interesting and emotional and and rollercoaster year and a half with a pandemic on people's minds, with a presidential election , probably the most controversial and emotional presidential election in a generation on our minds.

And the other thing is that this certainly is no consolation locals.

But last year, in twenty twenty other than Covid, there were not a lot of significant weather related natural disasters dispersed geographically.

There were some wildfires on the West Coast, but nothing like a Katrina or a Rita or Alora hit anywhere along the East Coast.

And so I got to tell you that for me, while it's a very real thing, it's also really difficult to say, because what it means is in southwest Louisiana, we don't have the bandwidth, we don't have the numbers, and there's not the political, the clout or the pull here as in some other places.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you, the other thing that plays along, it plays into it, and this is a double edged sword, is we are an extremely self reliant population here.

We tend to respond and we help each other and we reach across the aisle and across, you know, neighborhoods.

And there's a lot of self-sufficiency in this community.

But I am not bashful about saying it.

I'm not too proud to say that there are some neighborhoods in this city that look like Hurricane Laurer hit yesterday, and that's going to take more than just local government and nonprofits and churches to fix.

There has been a philosophical shift with insurance companies.

You know, I don't know why and I can't tell you the the legalities behind it.

But I hear and I see more issues with people receiving fair settlements from their insurance companies, fair awards and their insurance companies, way more than we did after Hurricane Rita.

So I think that plays into it as well.

But also, you know, after one disaster, after a after a Katrina, even, it's one disaster.

You know, you're able to move on, you're able to start picking up the pieces, you're able to start putting your life back together, even if it's step by step, day by day, moment by moment.

Think about trying to do that, and then six weeks later, Hurricane Delta comes and then four months later a winter storm and that that busts pipes and people's home and maybe fresh sheetrock you put up last month is having to be torn out again.

And then the May 17th flood, which the National Weather Service calls a one thousand year flood of full of it.

It's like every time we start to get our heads a little above water, Mother Nature comes and just pushes us back down by the worst thing to see is your signature building in downtown Lake Charles boarded up ?

No action, not in service.

And what is the future for that building?

We had winds that were akin to a 30 mile wide tornado coming through Lake Charles.

That's what it was like.

It was a cat four on the edge of a cat five.

Some people actually argue that it was a cat five when it hit Lake Charles.

Right?

I mean, that's as that's as powerful as it gets.

And so, yes, that building took a lick.

And at this juncture, it's public knowledge that the owners of that building are battling with their insurance company.

Right.

And the future is uncertain.

But I can just tell you, as a citizen, I would love to see the building refurbished, put back into use again, but I'd rather see it torn down than see it continue to look that way for an extended period of time because it sticks out like a pretty big sore thumb.

And pretty big reminder that Lake Charles has not, quote unquote, recovered.

Now, we're driving through town today, and I'm amazed at what's not been done.

I'm surprised that just regular signs are still blown out.

You know, just convenience store signs, a gas station signs, just basically that then you see structures that are collapsed still and then might be one next to it.

It doesn't seem like it was hit that bad, but it is widespread and it's everywhere.

And that surprises me.

Have you seen it that I guess you haven't seen it that bad before?

Absolutely not.

And after Hurricane Rita, first of all, there wasn't the amount of damage just to quantify the amount of debris that we have cleared out of Lake Charles in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita.

The city of Lake Charles cleared out about one point six million cubic yards of debris in the past 12 months after Laura.

That number for the city of Lake Charles is about four point four million cubic yards of debris.

So we're talking about more than double the amount of damage and debris.

So the scale was so much more and so much worse than Hurricane Rita.

The insurance's, the the what, you know, once in 100 year events, once a thousand year events, those seem to be so much more frequent.

In fact, they actually are more frequent in the past five years than they were in previous decades, that there are other factors coming together.

Unlove insurance is buckling under the weight of that.

But they could be I don't know.

But that's not a reason, is it?

No, I don't know the answer to it.

I just I know that when and I'm not just talking about speaking with my friends who are attorneys.

I'm talking about speaking with contractors, with just average citizens who are out there trying to get a fair settlement.

And they're having difficulty getting it much more difficulty today than we heard about 15 years ago after Rita.

So where do we go from here is we continue to advocate for additional resources.

We will scrape every penny from the couch cushions we can find.

And we're getting creative on some programs and initiatives through FEMA.

I know what it took for New Orleans to recover, and I know the amount of money that was pumped into that city for it to be where it is today and still still on the road to recovery in New Orleans.

So you can drive around and still see some remnants of Katrina.

Yeah.

And then I look at my city and it's like crickets out of Washington, D.C.

When we're asking for the same type of response.

I'm going to continue to choose my words diplomatically and carefully because I want to help people.

But there's a lot of people in Louisiana and a lot of people in Washington, D.C. that could be doing a lot more right now.

And and shame on them if they have the ability to do more.

And for whatever reason, they're not any elected official that looks at this situation and doesn't give it their all and put politics aside and say these people need help.

Let's go help them.

I don't understand that.

I don't know how that can be a human reaction.

To what we see day to day here in Lake Charles, where do you leave us with?

Well, I'll leave you with.

Thank you.

Just this moment because we'll be back.

Yeah, first and no, I mean that.

Seriously, thank you for being concerned about Lake Charles.

Every opportunity, every interview that I speak with, I tell them thank you for being here.

Thank you for keeping our story alive.

The worst thing that can happen is people stop talking about what's happening in Lake Charles and people forget and then move on to the next natural disaster.

There's going to be more.

There already have been more.

We had a string of unprecedented and and historic natural disasters hit us over the last year.

It could happen to another community next year.

And I pray that no one has to go through what we went through.

But if they do, my second prayer would be that they had a hell of a lot better response from the federal government than what we have had.

And and again, I'm very I try to be very ecumenical in my commentary.

President Trump and the 16th Congress had a chance to act.

They did not.

Now, President Biden and the 17th Congress has a chance to act, and I pray that they do.

Very strong words there from Mayor Hunter of Lake Charles.

What about the school system in Calcasieu Parish?

Well, it has battled to stay afloat and has done a fantastic job.

But again, the difficulties are enormous and they are obvious.

We talked to the superintendent of schools to find out more.

What was the task like trying to operate during a pandemic and with two back to back hurricanes?

I won't tell you.

It wasn't a bit overwhelming.

Carl Brook Alice is superintendent of the Calcasieu Parish School Board.

His first job after Laura battered seventy four of their 76 campuses was to assess damage, discuss options with architects and contractors , and work to reopen what they could for the first month after Laura.

We generally had no power throughout our whole parish.

And when you had any power, was that generator because know it took longer than that.

We have one facility that has generator power.

It's our tech building.

OK, so we we were able to keep Internet up to us, but we were not able to get it out to the schools because the pipes that go out to the schools were all damaged.

They they ran on electricity for the most part.

There was also no water.

And though it was brutally hot.

School leaders kept their focus and forged ahead with damage.

Vast and expensive insurance money and loans quickly ran out.

All they can do now is wait.

We're really pressing for FEMA dollars.

We've submitted those, at least the initial remediation and temporary reroofing contracts to FEMA about three months ago.

Middle school administrative director Owen Clanton was one of the many also dealing with the challenge of being forced out of his own home.

He, his wife and four children under 10 evacuated to Texas.

When they returned, the shingles were torn off down to the roof, the bare wood, and then some roof vents were torn out.

So just water was being dumped into our home, which eventually had to be down to studs basic starting over from a foundation.

Standing on the porch of the house they rented the past year.

Owen explained how the family persevered.

So what you don't see.

OK, so what you don't see right here in this window was our master bedroom, living room and dining room.

We called it our loft living.

OK, OK. And because we have we had our baby, the the infant, one year old that grew in one room by herself.

We had the two year old and three year old in her room.

And then the two big children split a room.

The master in the back.

Got it.

So mom and dad were here in the living room on our on our master bed.

And through all of that, through sharing the room, through the tight space, they have just been amazing.

Here in the town of Cameron, no stranger to major hurricanes, Audrey, 1957, Rita, two thousand five, and then Laura in 2020, followed by another Catu storm after that Delta.

But Laura really gave a knockout punch to this region, one that they had not seen since Rita, but one that exceeded Rita.

Cameron Parish Port Director Claire Marceaux has lived here her entire life, and she can sum it up best with the people here are facing.

When I left the mayor, I was struck by what he called a shift in insurance company philosophy.

Sure.

They don't seem to have your back.

We've talked many times during the year.

And I know you feel this has happened to you.

For myself and my family, for example, we had about seventy five hundred dollars in annual insurance premiums to pay a year.

That was flood and homeowners together.

And when Laura hit and our home was completely gone, only our flood insurance policy paid out.

Our homeowners paid zero.

And so I know that when I look around that there are many of us in the same situation.

Our only option at this point in order to recoup any of the payout from homeowners would be litigation.

And I just don't have that fight in me.

I know that there are many who are.

I know that there are still people that I know personally who haven't reached a settlement in litigation for Rita that happened in 2005 or Ike that happened three years later.

I'm overwhelmed.

I'm overwhelmed because I spent three years working for FEMA after Hurricane Rita.

And if anyone had told me then that the next significant natural disaster would take far longer to recover, far longer to see our federal government provide funding.

Federal supplemental disaster relief.

I would have laughed.

I would have thought that was comical, that that was just some sick joke, because you've been there working it.

Absolutely.

And knowing how it works.

I at the time?

Yes, at the time.

So why isn't it working now?

Nobody's been able to tell me yet.

Really?

Really.

I, I see a lot of people who have helped themselves.

When you drive through Cameron Parish, what you see rebuilt is because the homeowner or the business owner took on the the risk to do it again.

It's only been about six weeks since we had FEMA's public assistance inspectors come in and start making inspections.

That late?

Yes.

That later.

Yes.

That's unacceptable.

And so if I weren't in the role that I'm in and I were just a a normal everyday citizen, not directing our public port authority and in constant communication with the Cameron Parish police jury administrator and her staff, I wouldn't believe that I would question everything about government, local, regional, state, federal.

Our local government has been through this multiple times.

We understand how to recover.

It's difficult when one roadblock after another is placed in our way.

And so politics somehow has come into the mix here and really kind of crushed the spirit of people here, I would think, or tried to certainly try to be the people that raised me that I live with now, my neighbors.

Sure, we have some rough days, but our spirit, it's not ever going to get crushed.

There's just something, some flame inside of all of us that that that can't be snuffed.

And recovery when people start to see recovery that reignites that that flame and that resilience.

And so in little sparks, we're able to see it here in Cameron.

But overwhelmingly, you know, we need a we need some gas on our fire right now.

It's not easy to live here.

But what we get for living here is is certainly worth it.

So I try to remind my friends and my family and my my colleagues here that every day it will get better.

We might take a couple of steps back, but we still have to keep moving forward.

We're setting a precedent for the rest of our country in terms of the amount of liquefied natural gas that we're exporting in the recovery of a commercial fisheries industry, in coastal protection and restoration projects that are becoming a model for other coastal communities around the world.

We can't just stop now.

One thing that really upset me with loss for Laura was that I had about four hours of video footage of my grandmother.

She passed away in twenty eighteen.

She was 90.

Three French was her first language.

She came here from Lafayette with my grandfather and he ran the superior ole doc.

And people knew him so well because of what he did at the superior ole doc that they just called him Mr. Superior.

They didn't even know his name.

And I never watched that footage back.

And I just wonder how many people like me, my neighbors and my friends experience that same thing.

Oh, I forgot to take this or I forgot to evacuate this.

And my family and I are still just out of the blue thinking of, oh, I forgot.

My son was valedictorian of his high school class.

He graduated a year early and I didn't take any of his medals or his awards.

What does that teach you?

What do you have to learn from that?

Well, I've learned that everything is temporary.

So if I don't look at it and study it and do my best to remember it, then it's probably going to be gone, not just because of a storm.

It could be a fire.

It could be any kind of loss.

Just people need to pay attention.

To everything around them and.

Because it can.

Go away just as easy as it came.

We've talked on Zoom a lot during this year.

It's so great to see you face to face in person.

You do.

It's really a place very comforting to see you because I know that whatever is happening here is worth paying attention to.

And everyone, that's our show for this week.

Remember, you could watch anything LPB any time, wherever you are with our LPB Web app.

And remember to like us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

For Kara St. Cyr and everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Andre Moreau reporting from Cameron.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Entergy is proud to support programing on LPB and greener practices that preserve Louisiana.

The goal of our environmental and sustainability initiatives really is to ensure that our kids and future generations can be left with a cleaner planet.

Additional support provided by the Fred B. and Ruth B. Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana.

And the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting with support from viewers like you.