Back in the eye of the storm, literally… part 3

The day after a storm hits is different for news crews. We are typically up all night and there’s a team that takes over as soon as the storm passes. They normally try to sleep during the storm (not always easy) and try to relax before being “on the clock”.

So when we ended our live shots Thursday morning, we made our way to our rooms for a few hours of rest. As I got upstairs, I realized my phone had no cell service and the internet I had been tapping into all night was completely down. So I had zero ways to communicate.

At that point, I was too tired to deal with it so fell asleep around 8:15 am and woke up around 12:30 pm. Power was on, but the A/C and water was still out. At this point, I had no way to check and see what the situation was with the storm damage.

I made my way downstairs and decided to drive around for a few to see if I had a signal somewhere else. I didn’t. I also was able to check out a few of the hotels around the area as well as one of the shopping centers. Power lines and poles down everywhere and lots of debris all over the roads, which is pretty typical post-storm.

When I got back to the hotel, I was able to call a colleague on the room phone and he had a MiFi device that was working and offered it to me. So I graciously accepted and the team and I hit the road at 3 pm to set up for our 4:30 pm live shot.

Driving in my SUV was difficult. Then we had our satellite truck following us. It’s taller, obviously, and longer than the SUV so getting it through the streets with all of the downed lines and poles proved difficult.

After about a 45 minute drive, we found a spot the truck could park out of the way of rescue vehicles to do our live shots and also offer a place for our colleagues to go live from.

The building we were at was an apartment complex. It sustained a ton of damage but the good news is that most of those who rode it out in the complex were uninjured. It’s amazing that they survived with no injuries although the mental toll is yet to be determined.

We were able to get back to the hotel around 7 pm and the hotel restaurant was serving a limited menu. I’m not going to lie, that hamburger I had was probably the best in my life.

After a decent night’s sleep, we were up again at 3:30 am for a 5:00 am live shot. After 6 hours of live shots outside a local news station that lost it’s tower and next to the 2 businesses it destroyed when it fell, we were told to pack it up and head home.

Driving back to the hotel, I was truly able to take in all the damage. It’s amazing what a hurricane can do. Most of the damage was due to the winds but you could tell some of the areas near the bayous and lakes had some water damage as well.

There was not a single structure I saw in Lake Charles that didn’t have some type of damage. While some buildings were nearly destroyed, others would be able to eventually be repaired.

But the biggest need in the Lake Charles area was restoring power and restoring the water supply. A week later, teams are still working on this aspect and it remains to be seen as to when the systems will be repaired.

Overall, as bad as it is there, and it’s really bad, there is a bit of good news in that the storm surge that was projected never materialized. My limited knowledge of storms (this was my 10th to cover overall) leads me to believe that it moved so fast that the surge was minimal on top of the fact that being in the eye of the storm actually helped in that process. Again, this is completely an unscientific view but whatever kept the waters away is the best thing that happened during this storm.

The people affected by Hurricane Laura are only just beginning to understand what the damage is, both to their properties and to their overall ways of life. And it will take a very long time to recover. But there is a resilience to those who choose to live in a hurricane zone, especially in Louisiana.

So for now, I’m back home in the luxury of my air conditioned apartment with running water. I’ve donated to several organizations helping out and was able to donate my left over waters to some people at the hotel who needed it. I’ll continue to try and help where I can and hopefully what little I’m able to do will be combined with everyone else and make some type of impact.