Trahans recall road home

With the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Rita approaching, the Abbeville Meridional continues our series of articles with David and Cheryl Trahan’s recount of the storm.
At the time Hurricane Rita hit Vermilion Parish, David and Cheryl Trahan’s son Paul was only five weeks old. He was born premature, suffering from seizures, spending four days in the NICU at birth, and was later diagnosed with having Dandy-Walker Malformation. Cheryl herself was still recovering from the C-section when the family was faced with a mandatory evacuation of all homes south of Highway 14.
The Trahans, along with Cheryl’s elderly mother, traveled to a checkpoint located at Sammy’s Truck Stop on I-49. Traffic was so congested that it took the family four hours just to get to Opelousas! They were first sent to a shelter at the K.C. Hall in Bunkie. Due to the Trahan’s needs, they were eventually placed in a volunteer’s home.
While there, the Trahans received a report of water so high in their area, that Sheriff Mike Couvillon could not find his tractor. After four days in Bunkie, the family traveled to Abbeville to stay with an aunt. David and Cheryl attempted to get to their property first by vehicle and then by four wheeler, but had to turn back both times due to high water.
Their home, situated on Lake Road one mile north of Highway 82 and two miles east of Forked Island E. Broussard School, was already elevated to nine feet above sea level. Despite this fact, the Trahans’ home still sustained four feet of standing water from the storm surge.
Lake Road itself was covered in 10-12 feet of water. The salt water ruined the orange trees in their yard. The couple also had cows and donkeys which survived the storm, but had to be sold since the barn and hay were lost and there wasn’t any pasture grass left to feed them.
On the fifth day following Rita, David and Cheryl were finally able to reach their home via tractor. The sight that greeted them was dismal.
The majority of the baby gifts and clothing that Cheryl received for Paul’s baby shower were ruined. There were shrimp in the water, inside their home, along with limestone and marsh grass. Four feet of muddy salt water covered their furniture and belongings. Thanks to some quick thinking by David during their evacuation preparation, Paul’s christening gown was saved by placing it in a Rubbermaid bucket and duct taping the lid shut, allowing it to float.
The Trahans returned on the sixth day by boat, in order to retrieve some of their belongings. As they approached the house, Cheryl noticed that their door window had been broken since their visit the day before. They soon discovered that they had been robbed, sometime during the previous night. The thief made off with guns, jewelry and art work.
Since their house is situated far from the road, the Trahans believed it must have been someone within their immediate area who probably knew them.
“It was already disheartening to lose so much that David had worked so hard for, due to the storm,” Cheryl recalls, “but to then have to worry about the possibility of even neighbors being desperate enough to steal just added insult to injury.”
It took nearly two weeks before the Trahans could travel by vehicle to their home, and even then it was in a high-profile truck since there was still water on the road and in the yard.
David and Cheryl tried desperately to salvage what they could of their belongings, as well as the house itself. Despite washing the clothes multiple times, and wiping down what they could with bleach, the smell of rotten marsh water was prevalent. Worse than the smell was the mold and mildew that began to set in. With the help of family, the Trahans began pulling up the floors and insulation, and cut out four feet of walls to enable air flow in hopes of aiding the drying process. They sprayed fungicide on the remaining portion of the walls, but it did not stop the mold from continuing to travel upwards. Cheryl says they quickly learned that, “no amount of Clorox can clean up salt water residue.” Despite their best efforts, it became obvious that the couple would have to completely abandon hope of saving their home.
It took about 20 days before the roads had cleared enough for a FEMA inspector to travel out and survey the damages. By that time, David had already stripped the walls of the house down to the bare studs. The inspector claimed that he couldn’t give an actual estimate of the damage since he could not see the physical proof himself, despite all of the debris and belongings that were still piled up at the road. The inspector’s words were discouraging, and something that the Trahans remember to this day.
“The inspector claimed that the couch, dining room table, sofa, and beds – including Paul’s baby bed – were all luxuries. It was infuriating to hear him call everything that David worked for in life a luxury. He said he couldn’t have sympathy on us because he had just finished working the Katrina damage in Mississippi,” Cheryl recalls. Regardless of the severity of damages received by Katrina as compared to Rita, Cheryl says, “A loss is still a loss.”
David continues, “He told us the only necessities we needed were a stove, refrigerator, and blinds on our windows. We were told to pile blankets and pillows on the floor to sleep on, and that the rest of our belongings could be Clorox cleaned up and reused.”
The Trahans did receive a FEMA trailer, but the pipe holes were not properly sealed which allowed mosquitoes and mice to overrun the camper. The Trahans abandoned the trailer and bought their own camper, moving it into Kaplan. Eventually they purchased a home on Foote Street and remained there for about a year while their land was elevated. Living in the city was hard on David, who had lived in Forked Island all his life and was not accustomed to being outside of the country.
The Trahans tried to get assistance through the Road Home Program, which was designed to help families return to their pre-Rita lifestyle. Through the program, people had the option to sell their property to the state or to elevate and repair their homes. The Trahans wanted help with the latter option. However, after many months and phone calls, and the agency losing their paperwork a total of six times, it was deemed that David and Cheryl did not qualify.
Even though the Parish now required the house elevation to be at 11 feet in their area, the Trahans opted to elevate their mound to 13.5 feet just to be safe – since their home flooded four feet at the previous nine foot elevation. After the house pad was complete in November of 2006, the Trahans elected to wait almost a year to allow the dirt mound to settle fully. In September of 2007, David and Cheryl pulled a new house on their property and were finally able to settle back into home life in the country.
The following year, for Hurricane Gustav and Ike, the Trahans had to evacuate twice; each time they were filled with anxiety over leaving their home and not knowing what they would come back to. Although the water was high in their area for Hurricane Ike, the couple’s home did not flood. The water drained quickly this time around, and it was only two days before David and Cheryl could gain access to their home.
Since Rita, every storm that approaches the gulf causes the family to worry. Cheryl reiterates, “We have that anxiety of what will we come back to? What will the government make us do now, in order for us to be able to come back?” If they have to evacuate, they make sure to pack everything of value because they have learned that these scenarios can bring out the worst in people. If anything must be left behind, they are sure to store it in buckets with the lids taped tight, in hopes that it will survive.
Hurricane Rita impacted not only the Trahans, but their entire community, and it’s an impact that remains vivid in the minds of Forked Island residents to this day. Cheryl feels the entire ordeal has changed them; specifically, it has hardened her as a person. “It’s as though the government makes it hard to return to your property, almost as though they don’t want you back there. Like you’re being penalized for coming back instead of moving out,” Cheryl states.
The Trahans are a part of a group entitled Hurricane Rita Survivors, which meets once a year. They, as well as many others, refer to the Rita as the ‘forgotten storm’ since it remains in the shadow of Hurricane Katrina. Despite the cost of high flood insurance, and the possibility of future storm surges, the Trahans do not plan on moving.
Cheryl says, “This property has been in David’s family for 120 years. It has an emotional attachment for us. This is our home.”