Longtime residents of Tullier Road in Sorrento, Louisiana - a small town crisscrossed by I-10 and Highway 61, located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans - said this area had never flooded and that was a major reason my fiance, Philip Braud and myself, decided to purchase this property only last month.
That no-flooding claim changed forever - and devaluated our property as well - after Hurricane Isaac rolled through the area the week before Labor Day 2012.
Of course, it could be worse, MUCH worse, and, sadly, some of that happened to many others due to this huge, slow-moving storm. I have sent many prayers out lately for those who lost family and friends and all or most of their property thanks to the huge Category 1 system that began impacting southern Louisiana and Mississippi Tuesday, August 28. We lost power in our area around 9:10 p.m. CDT and winds up to 90 miles an hour buffeted us through the next couple of days. Thank goodness we had Philip's generator to keep cold stuff cold, lights and Internet service on for updates.
When Entergy got the power restored Friday afternoon, we thought we had seen the worst of Isaac's effects. We couldn't believe our eyes when the waters started rising in the yard and then began approaching the house Saturday afternoon. We almost gave up and had nearly decided to just let the dirty brown water do its worst and handle the resulting mess the best we could, but a passing Ascension Parish truck dropped a load of sandbags in our driveway, and our good neighbor Bradley Tullier, had his son-in-law bring over one of his water pumps and he then began to help us stack bags around the concrete foundation. My youngest son, Dale, helped sandbag, and my oldest son, Andy Jackson, and nephew, Leevon Zedlitz, also showed up to help.
As we were working desperately to get the bags stacked, two Ascension Parish Councilmen happened to be passing our house - Kent Schexnaydre and Randy Clouatre - and then things began happening fast. Schexnaydre got right on his phone and called in Spencer Chauvin and his four-wheeler and trailer rig to our house to help move the bags. Clouatre quickly surveyed the situation, left for awhile and returned with his personal two-inch sump pump to start pumping water behind the stacked sandbags. I called my niece, Shannon Cernich. She sent her husband, Jamie, over to our house and right behind him a crew of willing workers from the Gonzales Ward of the LDS church and - miraculously it seemed, and within only about 45 minutes - our new home was safely ensconced behind a five-bag high wall of white bags, with two donated pumps working mightily to lower the water behind the bags and keep it away from our foundation.
At 1 p.m. Saturday, we had been about 30 minutes away from interior flooding. As darkness fell and our flood lights reflected off the vast lake surrounding our home, we wholeheartedly thanked our friends, elected officials and all of the other kind and helpful hands that worked so diligently to help us in our hour of need. In days to come, Councilman Schexnaydre came by at least two more times to see how we were doing. State Representative Clay Schexnayder also came by the day the flood waters began to rise along Tullier Road and promised he would investigate the flooding situation and work to alleviate or prevent its reoccurring.
And above all, I want to thank my tireless and hardworking fiance, Philip Braud, for making my children, myself and our home safe under the worst of circumstances. He has labored for more than a week, through well failure, power outages and flooding, on less then four hours sleep per day, and had to miss a much anticipated IHMSA Regional shooting match and several days of work in order to accomplish this. I love him and appreciate him more than I can say.
Bottom line, with flooding, as in most things in life, never say never, 'cause you just never know.
But it IS nice to know that sometimes the worst of times brings out the best in the best of people.
A big THANK YOU again to you all!
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