[StBernard] Katrina Fatigue and Rita Amnesia

[Westley Annis]

Fram KATC - Lafayette
<"http://www.katc.com/Global/story.asp?S=4365626">

Two storms, two ailments: 'Katrina fatigue' and 'Rita amnesia'

CAMERON, La. -- Now that people are suffering from "Katrina fatigue,"
there's another ailment going around: "Rita amnesia."


An otherwise well informed friend in another state was stunned the other day
when reminded that Louisiana was hit by a second hurricane a month after the
chaos of Katrina. He did remember that Category 3 Rita caused a big traffic
jam in Texas, when all of Houston tried to escape at once.

He had forgotten one detail: Rita whacked Louisiana instead.

A quick recap, then: Rita treated Cameron and other towns the same way
Katrina treated New Orleans and Chalmette. Rita's aftermath has been largely
forgotten because the destruction happened in little-known southwest
Louisiana, not tourist magnet New Orleans. Plus, Lake Charles' streets
weren't littered with corpses. Looters didn't help themselves to shotguns
and TVs from Wal-Mart.

But the seat of Cameron Parish was flattened. Same thing in Holly Beach, a
tiny town that used to be full of weekend getaway homes. Delcambre was
inundated, along with other towns all along the coast.

Lake Charles, with 72,000 people, never used to have much in common with New
Orleans, the big city at the other end of the state. Now they share a
landscape of blue tarped roofs and ruined refrigerators.

Cameron was a small town before Rita. Now it's hard to find anyone at all.
Never mind getting lunch or a cold drink, a box of nails or a hammer, a tank
of gas. No restaurant, no hardware store, no gas station.

The narrow road into town is still there, but it's getting narrower. As
utility trucks and dump trucks rumble along, the pavement's edges are
crumbling into the drainage ditches, which Rita littered with ruined cars
and mobile homes. The scene isn't too different from post-Katrina St.
Bernard Parish.

It's true, Rita didn't kill anyone in Louisiana. Katrina killed more than
1,100.

But for the moment, nearly four months after the storm, there's little life
in the town of Cameron, where 2,000 people used to live. A bleak drive
around town is brightened only by the sight of the occasional house that
more or less survived _ ruined by floodwaters, but not a mass of shattered
boards and twisted pilings.

The police jury recently allowed people to move back to town, giving them a
rare chance to celebrate.

The celebration was brief. The town's sewage system still hasn't been
repaired, and FEMA won't deliver mobile homes until that happens. Since
nearly everyone lost their homes, that means few can actually move back.

As in Katrina country, one hears a lot of complaints about such FEMA
policies, plus gripes about rude FEMA operators and phone calls to FEMA that
were never returned.

Others say they're sick and tired of hearing people complain about FEMA.

Some Katrina refugees, we've all heard, are determined to rebuild ruined
homes. Some aren't sure and others have decided against it.

Same thing's true in Ritaland, the southwest Louisiana parishes that face
the same problems as New Orleans, just on a much smaller scale: How to get
rid of the debris, how to bring people back home, how to stop the false
rumors flying around that the government is forcing them to sell their land
and move north.

According to another myth, houses are being razed indiscriminately. Signs
have popped up in a few yards pleading: "Please Do Not Bulldoze."

Some in Cameron have moved away; others insist they'll rebuild.

Richard Mason might have come up with a compromise. Mason's two-story house
on Iris Street remains littered with mud, marsh grass and other storm
debris, including someone else's couch, other people's framed photos, plus a
real doozy: the carcass of a cow. It's been rotting on the living room floor
since September.

Mason's pretty sure rebuilding will be too expensive. He settled his wife
and kids 60 miles north in Moss Bluff.

But he has hit upon a way to keep one foot on the coast, where his family
has lived for generations. He plans to keep his property in Cameron and
replace the house with a hunting and fishing camp.

He says it's the only option that makes sense: "This is a good recreational
area. It'd be a waste to just throw it away, try to sell it now, because
nobody's going to give you anything for a house in Cameron."

The evacuation of Cameron was so successful _ the reason no one was killed _
partly because so many here still remember that Hurricane Audrey killed
hundreds in 1957.

Memories of Rita will remain strong, too. No chance of amnesia in these
parts.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE: Doug Simpson is an Associated Press reporter based in Baton
Rouge.