Texas & Louisiana

On Thursday, August 27th, at 1:00 a.m. hurricane Laura made landfall on the southern coast of Louisiana. 

Path of Hurricane Laura. It made landfall at 1:00 a.m. on the southern coast of Louisiana.

Directly in the path of the category 4 hurricane ("Cat 4" if you're acquainted with such jargon.) The sleepy town of Lake Charles, Louisiana was devastated. By 8:00 that morning 1200 miles away, Tyler's real estate team, HIVE Collective, was already talking about the storm. Aric Wiszt, who had served Katrina survivors on his mission, and Jason Turner, were already talking about what could be done to help the people in Lake Charles. Tyler joined that conversation approximately 8:30 a.m. and by 9:30 a.m. we had decided to mount a relief effort that included us driving out to Louisiana and helping people with our own hands. We'd bring as much support as we could to the people including generators, gasoline, bottled water, chainsaws, gloves, ropes, and tarps. 

This was Tyler's first effort to render hurricane relief. Though he had never participated previously, he felt confident that with Aric's experience and HIVE funds backing them, he could contribute to a truly meaningful effort. It was decided that by 6:00 p.m. the next day, after the storm surge had receded, it would be time to depart.

True to form, Tyler made shirts for the occasion. The shirts said #HIVEcharity on the front, and had "HIVE Crew" across the shoulders on the back. 

The HIVE announced their intentions on social media, predominantly on Facebook, and found an outpouring of support for the hurricane relief endeavor. Even before they'd left, they had raised over a thousand dollars, and they continued to receive donations the entire time they were travelling and working. 

It turned out that Lake Charles was a terrible place to stay — or even mount any kind of relief effort. It was far superior to set up shop about 50 miles west in Beaumont, Texas. That's where they met some important contacts in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Travis, an Elders Quorum president in Beaumont had some extra space that he made available to the HIVE workers. It was air conditioned and had running water, two things any site in Lake Charles lacked. Oddly, it was in a gym, similar to a VASA or Gold's Gym. So, for the next 7 days the HIVE crew set up in the theater room of the Beaumont Exygon Gym. 

The drive to the area was approximately 22 hours of solid driving. But they were also stopping for fuel, for rest stops, and for supplies. They had a trailer so they hauled most of their gear there, but they specifically left space for an entire pallet of bottled water that they picked up in Dallas. 

They arrived in Beaumont, Texas in the evening on Saturday. They would start work on Sunday morning in Beaumont to make sure Travis' ward received the help it needed before the team moved efforts east toward Lake Charles.

Beaumont, Texas (1) is separated by 50 miles from Lake Charles, Louisiana (2). We also visited surrounding several towns including Orange (3), Sulpher (4), Moss Bluff (5), Dequincy (6), Ragley (7), Reeves (8), and even Creole (9) down on the coast. 

There were several homes in Beaumont that needed light work. This was mostly clearing some debris from roofs and removing trees and branches that the heavy winds had toppled. There was no storm surge in Beaumont, and the hurricane had focused its fury to the east, but the people of Beaumont had been in a severe storm that took a toll.

This home had a tree toppled in their backyard. With a few chainsaws, we made short work of it. We even had a few carts that made hauling all the debris to the curb pretty easy.

At this home, in Beaumont, Texas, the homeowners hadn't even returned home yet. We could see they'd need help with the tree, so the Elders Quorum took care of this tree as well. Something you don't see in this photo unless you're looking close is that there's a gully canal right along the road. The brick path in the foreground goes over it. We needed to get the branches to the other side of the canal...and it got interesting.

That afternoon we surveyed damage in Lake Charles and other areas that were directly hit by the storm. The damage was much worse than what we saw in Beaumont. We saw homes flattened by the storm. We saw roofs devoid of shingles, scraped down to the decking (the wood under the shingles). We saw roofs where even the decking had been carved away exposing living spaces below. We also went down to Creole on the coast. There was saw where houses used to be. You could see the concrete foundation, but the actual homes were gone. There wasn't even debris! The foundation slab, where once had stood someone's home, was swept clean before the ferocity of the storm. Any pieces of those homes were carried in the hurricane...possibly for dozens of miles. Nothing to "fix". Nothing to "clean up." In short, there was nothing left but the memory. What the winds didn't carry away, the storm surge, which was about 5 feet remaining when we arrived, claimed. We saw gators swimming in the storm surge, waiting for their next meal. It was the first time I'd seen gators outside an enclosure at a zoo — they're pretty remarkable creatures. 

That night, over a phone call, I told the girls about the storm surge, the houses wiped off their foundations, the gators, the toppled trees, and the roofs without shingles or even decking on some cases. They were impressed by the intensity of the storm, and made sure I would photograph any other gators I saw.

Jason Turner, one of the members of the HIVE crew is a videographer. He quickly became our de facto photography and chief memory grabber. He's releasing a video this week about our adventure.

Obviously the climate is very different in Louisiana. Most people in the arid west don't realize that air conditioning actually dries out the air even more. Not a big deal in Utah - it just feels dry...which it would anyway. But in Louisiana, where the humidity was over 70% the entire time we were there, air conditioning plays an important role in keeping air not "moist". Here's what I mean: 

Humidity in Louisiana. Every single time I stepped into the outside air (from air-conditioned air), my glasses looked like this. Hahaha.

The next day, we decided we'd work just north of Lake Charles in a city called Moss Bluff. There, we'd seen a road that was completely blocked, and it looked like it was within our capability to clear. So, by 9:00 a.m. we were on site working on the road: "Willow Drive." There were three trees that had fallen on top of power lines, and then another two trees that had simply fallen across the road and were blocking access. 

Here's a quick time lapse of the 4 and a half hours we spent clearing that road: https://www.facebook.com/1674041862/videos/pcb.10214877502485791/10214877497525667/. 

I took to calling it "HIVE Drive" as opposed to "Willow Drive," which is what the sign said. It didn't seem to catch on with the locals, but I'm still holding onto the dream. 

After we'd cleared 3 trees from the road, we got some help from a posi-track skid steer piloted by a man named Howard. With a few well-placed chain saw cuts, he was able to break and push the tree off the road. I'm still claiming we did most of the work. 

Howard piloted the skid steer to help with the last two trees to clear this road...that we started calling "Hive Drive."

"HIVE Drive" after we can cleared the entire road out to the feeder road.

We also learned that Howard needed to have his roof tarped. This was something we knew we'd be doing a lot of. However, I must confess that I had never tarped a roof before. Aric, though, had been through Katrina recovery, and he had it figured out pretty well. He instructed us hurricane newbies how to put a tarp on a roof so that even though the shingles had blown off, the roof wouldn't let water through. 

It wasn't too bad for my first roof tarping!

Howard's roof needed a tarp to cover the missing shingles. You can see a gray tarp in the background, and another blue tarp in the foreground. Not bad for my first roof tarping!

That night we returned home thoroughly exhausted. There was a lot of humidity, and it was pretty warm outside — over 90 degrees every day. I learned that I can sweat a lot more that I previously thought possible. I shared this great photo with the girls so they could see how much I was sweating. They didn't appreciate it as much. They mostly responded with "Gross, Dad!"

Dad was sweating more that he ever had before. Note the amazing sweat spot that mostly starts at my collar and goes all the way down. The girls could only muster a "Gross, Dad!!" 

The next day we went out to the boonies on a lead from Facebook. We visited Mr. Lebleu's house. 

A massive pine had fallen on Mr. Lebleu's house. We did a drone fly over for him (for insurance, really), and then went to work on the trunk. 

We left later that day having tarped the trunk onto the roof. There were plenty of holes in the roof, but the tarps covered those pretty well.

The trunk was tarped under the blue tarp. The holes in the roof were covered by billboard vinyl. 

That was just the morning! During the afternoon, we found ourselves answering another call from Facebook, addressing a home with a single mom with a disabled child. We cleared the driveway of fallen limbs and trees so their vehicles could be used again.

That night we slept pretty well, exhausted from the labors of the day. This was the norm for the week. We'd fall into bed, and though we sawed all day, the night was full of sawing Zs. Each day we were more exhausted, and each night we slept all the better.

The next morning, we found ourselves entering a neighborhood where the people thronged our truck as we pulled into the neighborhood. This was one of the most humbling neighborhoods we encountered. We were the first relief workers to enter their neighborhood. People there were in pretty bad shape. Residents would go into their homes to salvage anything they could. While they were inside, neighbors would come and loot whatever they'd brought out on the front lawn, so homeowners didn't want to even go in their homes for fear the neighbors would make off with their salvaged belongings. 

We immediately found ourselves on top of one of the more heavily damaged roofs, and we went to work tarping. After we'd worked through that roof, we took lunch and surveyed the neighborhood. One of the homes had been picked up by the storm, rolled over, and thrust down on top of the neighbor's home. It was indistinguishable where the rubble from one house ended and the debris from the next house began. 

This house had been lifted up by the storm, rolled 180 degrees, and dropped on the house next to it...roof to roof. If you look closely behind the sofa just to the left of the center of the photo, that's an SUV that was parked to the side of the home. Obviously, it's now sort of inside what is left of the home.

The stairs in the foreground of the image above seemed an iconic photo opportunity to me. 

These stairs were once the front steps to a home that isn't there any more. And this seems like an apt symbol for the way many residents felt...no matter what steps they took, it didn't lead anywhere. For me, these stairs capture that feeling. 

And so it continued, house after house...roof after roof...tree after tree. The storm was pretty devastating everywhere in and around Lake Charles. And we happily exhausted ourselves cutting limbs, hauling debris, and tarping roofs.

I'll leave you with one more roof. We were in West Lake, a town near Lake Charles. We were responding to a home for a single mom with an infant. On the same road lived her mother, also a single mother, and some "adopted" siblings...all single moms with their kids. The power company had been working to restore power, but it's a slow process. We had to get special permission from the utility company even to enter the neighborhood. 

Here's the roof we climbed that morning.

This magnolia tree fell onto the roof. There were several shingles missing from the roof facing the storm, but the 40 feet of magnolia tree had come to rest lying across the roof. We knew we'd be able to remove the limbs, but the trunk...we'd have to see. Below the roof, inside, the single Mom was trying to salvage any baby clothes and toys she could. We found out later that they'd received a bid over $10,000 to remove the tree. 

We got the limbs off, and we were left with the challenge of removing the trunk — it was hundreds of pounds. There was no way to lift it off, and cutting it would dislodge the pressure of the rest of the mass and it would roll down the roof...most likely punching more holes in the roof and potentially destroying the power meter or the A/C unit (or both). We were quite uncertain about how to proceed.

Here's that same roof about 4 hours later.

You can see where the major impact came. But, that trunk is GONE! On the left of this photo, under the eaves is where the A/C unit is. Under the eaves at the top of the photo, that's where the power meter was. Hit either one, and the work the power company was doing was...well...pointless. Through some clever rigging, some smart planning, and an inordinate amount of luck, that 1,000 pound trunk missed the A/C unit, missed the power meter, and landed in slot of the open gate...pretty much like we drew it up.

The trunk, perfectly placed in the gate. Ya, we planned that!

Drained after trunk removal, we enjoyed a bit of relaxation before we started tarping.

It may look like a "Thug Life" rap album cover, but this is a photo of two sapped white boys in the Louisiana heat. Nevertheless, if there was a white-boy-hillbilly-rap album debuting after our trip, we would absolutely use this photo.

After we returned from West Lake, that day, we knew we were done tarping...at least until the next hurricane. I'd been promising I would catch a gator before we turned back toward Utah. So we got some good Cajun food, and got some good rest...cause we were gonna find some gators the next day.

This is our Cajun spread from Floyd's. I got the shrimp etoufee, YUM! There's fried okra in the middle there — Maleen didn't believe me, but it was very tasty. On the right, Jason got shrimp au gratin, and on the left, Aric got oysters, crab cakes, and a BBQ blue crab. Not only was it delicious, but it was also riotously fun to watch Aric eat his crab.

Aric, and his crab.

Finally, the day I'd been waiting for...we found a few gators.

These gators all looked a little "grande" for me to take on though.

So, I caught this guy. He was a little over 2 feet long. And he had needle-sharp teeth. Luckily, I kept my hands out of his mouth. But, here's that gator I promised you, girls!

We even saw some gators attacking!

Of course, when you see the whole photograph, you realize the gator was "attacking" the feeding stick from this highly trained intern. And that gator is 14 feet long and he's a little famous. He goes by "Big Tex", and he lives in a quaint little gator village called "Gator Country." It turns out that "catching" a gator here at Gator Country, is a lot safer than out in the storm surge. I figured I wanted to return home with all my fingers, hands, feet, legs, etc.

We learned that the most common attack from gators is actually a full body roll to one side with a coordinated SNAP of the jaws...that's when 1,500 pounds of jaw pressure closes. If you resist, they'll give you the remaining 1,500 pounds of jaw pressure and lock their jaw at 3,000 PSI. Then, once you stop struggling, they violently roll their body back the other way and rip flesh off the bone, and sever bones from core. Ah, Mother Nature's apex predators. 

And, we HIVE guys, we talked the interns into letting us run the feeding stick. AWESOME.

Tyler, running the feeding stick for "Ally, the Ex-Wife".

After Gator Country, it was time to turn our course back to Utah. Just 22 hours stood between us and home. We said goodbye to our new gator friends, and we made for Houston. 

This is a good time to point out a road sign we passed a few times in our travels. This just seems like Texas is bragging.

Beaumont, 23 miles. Next city? Well, that'd be El Paso...just 857 miles away in the same state on this very road. Yes, Texas is THAT big. Eat that, Rhode Island.

On the return trip, we decided to go through Colorado, which incidentally took us right past Virginia Wright's house. Naturally, we stopped to say hello, but being that it was 2:00 a.m., we decided to leave a note instead. Hahaha. 

And this pretty much described the non-stop drive home. 

Non stop means no stops. At all.

We arrive back home Saturday afternoon...just in time for me to go water the Layton lawn. Hahahaha. The work never ends.

And here's one final shot of the boys: Tyler, Aric, and Jason.

A little scruffy, a little sunburned, a little sore, a little tired, and a little wiser.

Coming home from Louisiana helping with hurricane Laura. We'll be back with our families in just a few hours. 😁 It's been a long drive... We've driven over 4000 miles in this truck. Axe body spray has been holding up so far...

Here's a link to Jason's video on Facebook: https://bit.ly/2Zn9cnG.