Magna parishioners experience Katrina's devastation

Intermountain Catholic

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Leslee Lewis estimates the damage of this New Orleans home caused by Hurricane Katrina. She had to wait nearly two months for the water to recede from this home before she could get inside to assess the damage.IC photo courtesy of Leslee Lewis

MAGNA — "I hope the people of New Orleans get a break this year from a major hurricane," said Leslee Lewis, an insurance adjustor who saw firsthand the devastation left behind by Hurricane Katrina. "The people in New Orleans have had just about all they can handle."

The 2006 hurricane season began June 1, with four to six major storms predicted for this year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Hurricane Katrina, a category four hurricane, became the most destructive and costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States since 1928. When Katrina hit land Aug. 29, 2005, it breached the levee system that protected New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River devastating New Orleans and flooding the coasts of Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle. Hurricane Katrina killed thousands, and left more than a million people displaced.

Lewis and her brother, Tom McGill, traveled to New Orleans two weeks after Katrina landed on the gulf coast. They are both members of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Magna. Lewis is a retired Utah State parole officer and McGill is a retired county fireman. McGill and Lewis decided to take classes in insurance adjusting to earn a little extra income after talking to McGills’ friends, Kenny and Joni McCauley. The McCauleys are flood insurance adjusters who work for Colonial Claim Corp.

"The thing I remember most about the day I arrived was the horrible smell and the eerie silence of standing in the middle of a very large city and not seeing another human being or even a vehicle," said Lewis. "I felt like I was in one of those movies where something horrible happens that wipes everyone out. I truly felt that my brother and I were the only ones left."

This was Lewis’ first trip to New Orleans and for the next two months she saw only minimal changes. The first week she spent most of her time on the telephone trying to schedule appointments with people whose claims they were to process. Lewis said this alone was an eye opener.

"One of my first calls was to Terri (not her real name). I explained who I was, who I worked for, and asked if we could get together to go through her home," said Lewis. "Terri started to cry and said she had only moved into her new home 24 days before Katrina. Just three days before Katrina, Terri had a stroke and was in the hospital. Terri said she did not even get to say good-bye to her home or gather her kid’s baby pictures.

"They life flighted Terri out of the hospital and she had just barely located her husband and her kids three weeks later," said Lewis. "I did not want Terri to feel alone, so I cried with her. It was our first cry, but it would not be our last."

Lewis said another claim she handled was Kevin’s (not his real name), who had been in his home for less than a year. He moved from his former residence to be closer to his mother and so he would not be so close to the ocean. Kevin was worried about flooding. Unfortunately his new address was only one block away from Bayou St. John, which flooded.

"The average floodwater inside my claimants’ homes so far had been between four and six feet," said Lewis. "Kevin had eight feet of flood water. When I asked him if there were watermarks on his ceiling, he said he did not know because the ceiling was on the floor. Kevin’s home was one of the worst we saw."

Kevin called Lewis a few weeks later to see if she had followed through on applying for an advance of monies for him. After assuring him she had, Kevin broke down and cried. He and his mother, who had also been flooded, had been forced to move in with relatives and tempers were starting to flair. Kevin had nowhere to go to be alone for even a few minutes to have some time to think, and he did not know if he could go on.

"Kevin and I talked for quite awhile that day, and my brother called him later that afternoon to make sure he was alright," said Lewis. "I understood what Kevin meant by the need to be alone for just a little while. My brother and I were staying with his two friends and 13 other people we did not know in a three bedroom, two bathroom house. I shared a couch bed with my brother, and I could handle that. It was the stranger who slept on the floor at the foot of our bed, another in the walk-in closet, and another on the floor in the dining room that started pushing me toward the edge."

Lewis and McGill were finally able to rent a trailer in Plaquemine just outside of New Orleans. They moved to the bayou where their neighbor was an alligator who lived just 20 yards away, along with snakes and other creatures in the water six feet behind the trailer.

Lewis said Katrina brought tremendous winds to the city which washed boats onto the freeway. One claimant had a boat in his yard that did not belong to him. He had no idea where his boat had landed.

"But it was the mold that took final control of everything," said Lewis. "No one was allowed back into their homes for several weeks and white walls were now black with mold and everything was slimy, which made it difficult to walk. What made it worse was trying to step over debris, not lose your balance, and at the same time, watch for Cottonmouth and Water Moccasins, which are both potentially lethal snakes."

Lewis said if they did get a snake bite they would have had to deal with it themselves because there were no emergency medical personnel who could respond to their call. In fact their cell phones were not working.

"Onstar® in our vehicle was our saving grace, which helped us find our claimants’ homes," said Lewis. "Most of the street signs had been washed away with everything else. I do not see how they are going to reconstruct some of the areas.

"My brother and I were still in school when Katrina hit the gulf coast," said Lewis. "We did not have our state licenses, but because we had attended the National Flood Insurance training in Portland (N.F.I.P), we were invited to go to New Orleans. Apparently because of the mass of destruction and the number of claims, the N.F.I.P. approved some adjusting companies to take on aspiring adjustors for on-the-job training.

"The McCauleys approved and oversaw everything we did, and they were incredible instructors," said Lewis. "Without them and my ability to call home to talk to my husband, the situation would have been impossible."