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Living Word Foundation VOLUNTEER TEAMS HAVE ALREADY COMPLETED MORE THAN 700 WORK ORDERS IN LAKE CHARLES. MANY MORE VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED TO WRAP UP OUR RESPONSE IN THIS HARD-HIT COMMUNITY.
Rusty and Gloria Terry were trapped in their home the day Hurricane Laura slammed into southwestern Louisiana. Rusty had worked hard the previous day to repair his truck, but when they finally got ready to evacuate, the truck wouldn’t shift gears. Rusty tried and tried, but eventually realized they were stuck.
I couldn’t believe it,” Rusty said. “We couldn’t go anywhere. This truck is all I had.”
The Terrys hunkered down. They’d weathered hurricanes before, but Laura had strengthened into a more devastating storm than anything they could have expected. For nearly 12 hours, Laura’s winds were so strong that they shook the house. “I didn’t think the hurricane was going to last that long,” Rusty said. “I’ll never forget it.”
And he has a scar to remember it by.
He’d opened the screen door to see what damage was being done to the other homes. That’s when a piece of debris blew into his face and cut his forehead.
“I had no idea it would be this bad,” he said. “The wind blew nearly every single shingle off the roof.”
VOLUNTEER IN LAKE CHARLES, LOUISIANA
But things seemed only to get worse. It wasn’t long after the sky cleared that Rusty and Gloria realized the difficult truth—moving forward and surviving the storm’s devastating aftermath would prove much harder than riding out the storm itself.
A Shocking Aftermath
There was not a dry spot in that house when it rained,” Rusty said. “The whole bed would get wet. We had to put a piece of wood over a hole in a back room.”
Rusty said they especially had to be on the lookout for leaks in the kitchen, sometimes moving their dinner plates out of the path of dripping water while trying to finish a meal.
After 40 years in construction, Rusty knew how to tarp a roof but was unable to do the work on his home due to back injuries and complications with diabetes. He also knew he wasn’t able to pay for significant repairs.
But things seemed only to get worse. It wasn’t long after the sky cleared that Rusty and Gloria realized the difficult truth—moving forward and surviving the storm’s devastating aftermath would prove much harder than riding out the storm itself.
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