Second catastrophic storm of ‘05 left wreckage and valuable lessons

By COLIN MURPHEY
A little over a decade ago, Hurricane Rita slammed into the Louisiana coast causing billions of dollars in damage and leaving 120 people dead.
When the storm made landfall on the Louisiana coast near Holly Beach with sustained winds over 120 mph, it was the fourth strongest Atlantic hurricane since records have been kept. Many low-lying coastal communities were flooded by the storm surge including several in the area.
For those in St. Mary Parish who lived through one of the worst Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded, the experience remains a vivid memory of a time when flood waters inundated the area, residents were evacuated by boat from their homes and lives were forever altered.
On the 10-year anniversary of the catastrophe, several people who were directly involved in the recovery effort and others who survived the experience took time to recall the day the skies opened up over the parish and the days of struggle and hardship that followed.
Duval Arthur, Assistant Director of the St. Mary Parish branch of the Department of Homeland Security said the effects of the enormous storm system were unlike anything he had ever seen before.
“We had about 400 houses that had water in them from the storm surge from Rita,” Arthur said. “I’ve been living here for 40 years and I had never seen water like that. It was really scary. The water came into Franklin from the Franklin Canal. It went over the banks of the canal and flooded the Pecan Acres area and went all the way up to the train tracks. It was a lot of water. You gotta remember, that storm was 250 miles from us and it still pushed all that water up to us.”
Arthur said as devastating as the storm was to St. Mary Parish and surrounding communities, the situation did serve a purpose as a learning experience. He said deficiencies in the levee system were identified and work is being finalized on enhancements and upgrades to vital infrastructure in the parish that he said should provide more protection in the inevitable event of another hurricane.
“We certainly were able to identify our weaknesses from that storm,” Arthur said. “Nobody got killed. It really was a blessing in disguise because we identified where we were weak and we have since corrected that. One of the biggest problems we identified was that our evacuation route was prone to flood. It was a learning experience and a wakeup call because it’s going to happen again.”
Another member of the community who has a unique perspective of the power of storms and the damage they can inflict on the area is someone who is directly involved with the elaborate system in place to mitigate the effects of a hurricane. St. Mary Parish Levee District Executive Director Tim Matte said while he was not in the position he is now when the storms hit, he was inspired in part by the events to get involved with protecting the area against the threat of another destructive weather system.
“We have learned from the experience of Hurricane Rita and we have been able to put in measures to protect against flooding in the future,” Matte said. “It doesn’t mean people won’t have to evacuate in the future. It just means, hopefully, people will come home to property that was properly protected.”
St. Mary Parish Chief Administrative Officer Henry “Bo” LaGrange was also on the job when Rita hit the area. LaGrange said, like Arthur, the experience was a learning one for the parish.
“Rita came right on the heels of Katrina,” LaGrange said. “Fortunately, we had minimal impacts from Katrina. Now here comes Rita and we had a lot of damage from the storm surge. We had a lot of flooding and wind damage to the parish. From there, we worked really hard to recover. There was a lot of support from the state and federal government to recover but there was also a lot of effort to see what we could do to make the communities more resilient and be able to bounce back faster for when future events hit us.”
LaGrange said if there was a silver lining to devastating events like Hurricanes Katrina, Gustav, Ike and Rita, it was that he felt the communities that were impacted by the storms came away from them with perhaps a sense of durability and toughness that may not have been there before.
“We are stronger now,” LaGrange said. “It helped us identify where we needed to be better prepared. We are better at communicating with other government entities now. We know where to get the resources to help people evacuate. It helped us get stronger as a community. It helped us get stronger as a parish. Because it will happen again.”