Grand Chenier, LA // Post Hurricane Laura // 8.31.2020

I know this post looks quite a bit different than anything else you’ll see here but my favorite part of being a photographer is also being a story teller via my photos so I asked my parents to ride with them for their first trip back home after the storm so I could document it. I truly wasn't ready for how heavy my heart would feel. I barely slept at all last night and I tried prepare myself as best I could for what I would see when we got there today but I think nothing can really prepare you for this kind of devastation, even when you've already lived through this nightmare before. I was raised in this place, we moved here the summer before I started third grade and we lived in a few different homes around Grand Chenier & Little Chenier. I made my first communion in that church, I used to walk to that park on the weekends, I waited for the bus next to those oak trees, I rode my bike up and down this mud & debris covered road, my dad would take me to that store when I was a kid and tell me I could get whatever I wanted, I got my drivers license here, we had birthday parties, holiday parties, graduation parties, we were wiped out just like this for Hurricane Rita in 2005, and came back and rebuilt, we fished and crabbed here, my husband proposed to me under the oaks here. We made sooooo many memories here growing up, then more as we all grew up and the grandkids started making their memories here! Just 3 weeks ago me and some of my siblings spent a long, fun weekend out at mom and dads having no idea that was going to be our last weekend there. My parents have been here for the last 22 years and while we were driving in today none of us could tell where we were because there was hardly anything left to identify. There is one main highway that stretches east to west along lower Cameron Parish, so to be driving along that one highway you've been driving for so long but have no idea where you are says it all. I wanted to take more photos but there was many times where I picked my camera up but there nothing to take photos of, nothing but a slab or just an idea of where a house or structure used to be. What you see in these photos is what's left, but all that's gone just wouldnt have said much in a photograph if you didnt know what was there before. We tried to piece it together as we were driving in but we definitely knew when we drove up to Twin Oaks RV Park, where my parents have lived for 3/4 of the those 22 years. Walking the property we were unable to identify anything that looked familiar, all that is left of my parents place is the wood posts and cinder blocks that held it up. There was no walls, no floors, no objects laying around that looked familiar. My parents lived right on the Mermentau River, so just like after Hurricane Rita, we assume the river swallowed it all up. This is the second time my parents, and most Cameron Parish residents have lived through this, and for some older folks who have been here all their lives, this was the third time. I dont really know what other words to say here, because what can you say that speaks louder than these heartbreaking photos. There are so many more parts of Cameron Parish and Calcasieu Parish that are as devastated as you'll see below but you won't see as much about it in the media because its not a big populated city that most will even think twice about after this week. A few days before the storm I turned on the news to see a major news reporter doing a story down in New Orleans, talking about Hurricane Katrina's memory and how they were preparing for the storm there but NOLA is 250 miles from the landfall of Hurricane Laura so why were we talking about that?! This town that was flattened just 15 years ago, that anniversary coming up, was about to be rocked and flattened again but the media doesnt care because this is a small community, small town people, where everyone knows everyone! I mean, the town of New Orleans has 55 times the population of the entire Cameron Parish. When we got to the checkpoint to enter the parish, the local police officer asked my dad to go drop some gas in his generator down the road while he was passing. People drove by and honked and waved and showed their love and support just in those small gestures. They will come together again to help themselves, they wont wait for the media attention, or the help from around the country, and they're okay with it because they aren’t these media fame hungry kind of people anyway! They are strong, country people who will pick up, clean up, rebuild, or make the difficult decisions to move their lives elsewhere. So please keep all of these people and communities in your thoughts and prayers.