Claudette Olivier / The Church Point News
There are no doubt many ties between Church Point and the Lake Charles area — children off to college, local workers employed in southwest Louisiana and relatives who have put down new roots.
But once the eye of Hurricane Laura roared ashore on Aug. 27, all that changed. Buildings on the campuses of McNeese State University and Sowela Technical Community College took a heavy beating, business were destroyed or at best temporarily closed due to damage or lack of power and some of those relatives were left without homes.
On Sept. 25, staff from the Church Point Police Department and Church Point Volunteer Fire Department followed those ties out to Victory Baptist Church on the southeast side of Lake Charles to drop off a trailer full of collected donations from the Church Point area. The items, which included food, water and clothing, were delivered to the church’s school building, which is currently serving as a supply distribution site.
Arlene Dartez, wife of church’s pastor, Wayne Dartez, said, “The first truck of relief supplies arrived the Sunday after the storm. We’ve had trucks from North Carolina, Ohio, you guys, Oklahoma, all over.”
She continued, “We were thinking about slowing it down, but we were in it for the long haul. As long as we keep getting stuff, we will keep it open. The school, we are trying to get a little metal building or multi purpose building to run the school. We have a small private school with about 30 kids. If we could get a smaller metal building that we could put off to the side, we could still have the school. Because this is the reading center for first through 12th grade, as long as we can house it, we’ll house it, even if push comes to shove and we’ve got to move it under the drive through at the church and barricade it off.”
The distribution site is open from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Dartez estimated that about 40-50 families come by each day to get supplies. Those who stop by fill out a sheet with contact information and the number of family members in their household, and Dartez said about 750-1,000 people a week are helped with the donations.
“We’ve got more people coming from Calcasieu Parish,” Dartez said. “When I get certain things that I know they need, I call them. I’ll meet up with people after we close to get them stuff.”
Dartez said needed items include pet supplies, adult diapers, clothes, children’s diapers in larger sizes as well as training diapers, personal hygiene products and cleaning supplies.
“We can’t keep cleaning supplies,” Dartez said. “That’s the commodity that everybody is looking for — cleaning supplies.”
“Fruit cocktail — there’s not a shortage of it, that’s for sure,” she added, laughing, as a volunteer unpacked a box of donations.
A woman showed up shortly after asking if Dartez knew someone who could remove a tree from her home, and Dartez took her contact information.
“Every now and then, someone shows up asking if someone needs trees moved,” she said.
In addition the damage to the church’s school building, the church itself was also damaged.
“We don’t have a quote yet on the repairs, but it will probably be another year before we are back in the church,” Dartez said. “The school, the back half of the school is gone. There’s no roof. In the church, there’s several puncture holes in the building, and we also lost some of air conditioners at the church.”
Dartez and her husband live in Grand Lake, a small community in the northeast part of Cameron Parish, and they evacuated to Lafayette on Wednesday, Aug. 26 as the outer bands of the Hurricane closed in on the coast of Louisiana.
“We came back the afternoon after the storm had passed to assess what was damaged,” she said. “We saw the church’s big awning that covered the two buildings for the kids to play under when it would rain. My husband had pulled his truck and trailer in between the buildings, and a tornado or whatever had ripped it off. Some of it landed on his truck and trailer, but the metal is what had pierced the holes in the church and busted out a big plate glass window.
“Our house, we had a window busted out, and the north wall of my house had fallen away. We are blessed compared to some people because we have something we can fix. They don’t. They just have a pile of debris in their yard.”
Dartez said the electricity at their home has been restored, and they are currently living in their bedroom.
“One of our volunteers is hearing that it will be four more weeks for her home to have power,” she said. “We lost so many (power) grids, they are having to totally rebuild. People are hurting here.”
She continued, “They’ve got a drag to their step, and their spirit is bruised. It’s heartbreaking, it really is.”
The Dartez’s two businesses in Grand Lake — a sandwich shop and an ice cream shop — were also damaged by the storm.
“When I knew Laura was hitting, the Tuesday was the last day my restaurant was open,” Dartez said. “I worked Wednesday, and we left at noon. I knew OEP had said nobody was coming back in. I said, ‘Excuse me, I need to get back to put generator to try to save my stuff.’ They said no, nobody is going to be allowed to come back in. As people were coming in and I knew they were evacuating, I would get a bag and fill it with bread and mayonnaise and mustard packs and packs of ham. I knew I was going to lose it all. God will bless us.”
Her last task before closing up was to update the business’s marquee sign — “God watch over us” it read.
“We had one broken glass at the store and replaced eight ceiling tiles because something had punctured the roof,” Dartez said. “The building next to us has $1.8 million in damage. It will be six to eight months before they come back. We are blessed. We’ve got something to fix. Our people are strong people, and we’ve had church members who have come in every day and helped disperse things. It’s been a blessing to be able to talk to people and help them.”
Recovering from the devastating hurricane will be another mark on the list of “new normals” for the year of 2020. Donation distribution sites like the one at Victory Baptist Church can be found all over Calcasieu and Cameron Parishes. The area south of the church was likely the hardest-hit of southwest Louisiana as it was located in the northeast side — what is commonly known as the worst side — of the hurricane’s path when it roared ashore.
Those from the Church Point area who made the road trip to Lake Charles were CPVFD Chief Raymond Ledoux, Fireman David Watt, Fireman Jeff Stelly, Debra Thibodeaux, wife of Church Point Police Chief Dale Thibodeaux, Dale Thibodeaux, Fireman Samantha Adams, Fireman Edgar Daigle and Fireman Troy Thibodeaux.
Chief Thibodeaux said, “My department would like to thank the Church Point community for its generous donations to help the victims of Hurricane Laura. It was great to see all the items that were collected. Southwest Louisiana was hit very hard by the storm, and the items will help countless families get back on their feet during this difficult time.
“We were happy to make the trip to deliver the goods to Victory Baptist Church in Lake Charles, and we are grateful for the appreciation we received from the church’s volunteers.”
Chief Ledoux said, “The fire department was more than happy to do its part in helping the people of Southwest Louisiana. We played a small part, but it was a something we could do. We knew it was something we needed to do because they would help us in our time of need. We just wanted to pay it forward.”