Lower T’bonne helped by kindness of strangers

Over 1,400 volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints arrived last weekend to help clean up hurricane-damaged areas in Terrebonne Parish.

Members of the AFL-CIO and the Rev. Martin Luther King III joined in the effort.

“This is an unbelievable action of love from so many people that they are going to be helping our citizens,” said Parish President Michel Claudet. “This is something government would have a difficult time doing unless it came through the National Guard or one our first responders.”

Groups of volunteers were sent into neighborhoods in Dulac, Dularge, Chauvin and Senator Circle in East Houma.

The church has donated the equivalent of 46 semi-truck loads of cleaning and hygiene supplies, food, clothing and generators to areas affected by hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The state donated nearly 2,000 tarps as part of the weekend’s recovery effort.

“There’s still quite a bit of devastation that has to be addressed here,” said church member John S. Anderson. “We’re here to do all we can to assist in that.”

Anderson said the church would assess the area and continue to send crews of volunteers every weekend, though not on the same scale.

King got involved in the effort after receiving a call from United Houma Nation Chief Brenda Dardar-Robichaux.

After hearing about the storms’ impact on the community, King reached out to the Mormons and other community organizations for assistance.

“I visited the island (Isle de Jean Charles) and Dulac about a year-and-a-half after Katrina and Rita,” King said. “When we went there yesterday, it seemed more devastated than before. It makes you wonder what is the solution to these disasters that keep coming.”

The Houma Nation is part of King’s Waging War Against Poverty Initiative. Robichaux suggested that the first battle should begin in the Indian communities impacted by the storms.

“We have homes and communities that have been totally destroyed,” she said. “It’s getting more and more difficult to sustain our culture and our heritage. We see it greatly threatened.”

Volunteers gathered supplies at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Houma and dispersed into the affected areas.

A group from the Shreveport-Bossier City area was assigned to a home in the South Central Subdivision in Chauvin. After seeing that most of the home was already cleared of debris, they sought other homeowners who needed help.

It turned out to be George “Ricky” Allen’s lucky day.

The father of four – George Jr., 16, Destiny, 7, Trinity, 5, and Joseph, 2 – saw his Bosco Street home filled with 3 feet of water and sewage after Hurricane Ike’s storm surge overtopped the nearby Ward 7 levee.

The Mormon volunteers stripped flooring, re-tarped the roof and removed sheetrock from the Allen home.

“It’s just been me and my boss (Shain Landry) for the last week trying to clean up everything,” Allen said. “They (volunteers) are a godsend.”

Allen’s wife left him and the couple’s children after the storm. The family has been staying at his workplace, Expert Tire and Auto Center.

“FEMA gave me some housing assistance, but you can’t find nowhere in town to stay,” he said. “You call the hotels and they’re all full or not accepting people on FEMA assistance.”

For the volunteers – Bishop Maranto, Alan Hermel, Jamon Blood, Jeff Doan, Joe Hawkins, Blaine Noel and Lyman Bahr – giving their time to assist in the recovery process is not charity. It is their duty.

“It’s a good feeling to help somebody out whenever you have the opportunity,” Maranto said. “That’s why we do it all the time.”

Bishop Maranto (left) from Shreveport and Blaine Noel from Bossier City shovel debris from George “Ricky” Allen’s flooded Chauvin home. The two men were among 1,400 volunteers who arrived over the weekend to help Terrebonne Parish residents. * Photo by KEYON K. JEFF