TORONTO -- A Louisiana man who stayed behind as his family fled from the wrath of Hurricane Laura is assessing the impact caused by the storm.
Lake Charles, a city that sits on the banks of the Calcasieu River in southwestern Louisiana, was one of the hardest-hit by the storm. The city is located about 48 kilometres inland from the Gulf of Mexico, where strong winds and heavy rain toppled trees, knocking down power lines and damaging houses.
Residents were left without power and running water. An estimate for when those services will be restored has not yet been provided.
To make matters worse, a stay-at-home order was enacted during the storm, after a large chemical fire erupted at a chlorine production plant just west of the city.
While many residents evacuated, 40-year resident of the area David Perry stayed home through the storm.
“It was pretty scary,” Perry told CTV’s Your Morning on Friday. “We’ve lived through several hurricanes before, this was my worst one though.”
Perry’s wife and children fled to Dallas, Texas to avoid the brunt of the storm, but he says he decided to stay with a friend in a multi-storey house in Lake Charles.
After the worst of the storm passed, Perry says he went into action and began assessing the damage throughout his neighbourhood.
“We’ve got neighbours homes that are devastated with trees down through the middle of them, roofs totally ripped off,” he said. “Several properties look like a bomb hit them and just exploded.”
A 14-year old girl was the first hurricane-related death to be reported by the governor’s office early Thursday, after a tree fell on her home.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused 1,577 deaths in Louisiana and an estimated total of US$161 billion in damage.
“Now it’s just a lot of clean up,” Perry said on his next steps after the storm. “A lof of dirty hard work.”
