On August 13th 2016, Louisiana received 7.1 TRILLION gallons of rain in less than 36 hours causing the worst national disaster since Superstorm Sandy. Just to compare, Hurricane Katrina dropped 2.6 Trillion. The unnamed storm flooded 11% of the state, leaving 144,000 homes a ‘complete loss’. The media has failed to cover the magnitude of devastation here in Louisiana where help is still so desperately needed. People are still being found, living in make shift housing… our volunteer group of about 10 rotate days, continuing to send people out into the field in order to meet the needs of so many.. but it is overwhelming, and we certainly need more help.
We first learned of Mrs Diane while posting in a FB group asking where the tent cities were. We learned of 8 communities where people are still living in tents, 8 weeks after the flood… and these are the fortunate ones that have been found, and given an alternate living space than the black mold infested home that still needs gutting. Storme’s Shelters was born when we continuously found human beings living inside of the flooded homes. “We’d tell them they can’t live in these conditions and they’d respond with ‘what choice do I have?’ and we didn’t have an answer, so we created one” says Storme. An Amazon Wishlist of camping supplies was created, initially looking to home people in 3 and 5 man tents, but when returning to check on those rehoused, they’d find the residents back in the homes because the AC still worked, or because they couldn’t crouch under the doorways of small enclosures. The wishlist was revised to accommodate people in 8 and 10 man tents where they could walk around.. a real home outside of their home. Extension cords are ran to the tents providing power for phones, crockpots to cook, air mattresses, and in some lucky cases, real beds.
Mrs Diane was by her neighbors living in a dog kennel with a tarp over it, here she had been for 4 weeks. Shelters had closed down, and bounced her around until the last shelter finally provided her a ride home to a completely condemned mobile home. She did what she had to do while she sat and waited for FEMA. Inside her dog kennel she had put a box spring that she found on the neighbors trash pile, covered it with a few blankets, and called it home. The following video is a compilation of footage from that day. September 29th, 2016.
Video is Copyright by Storme Hannan XOXO 2016.
By the end of the day help had shown up to pitch a ten man tent. People watching the initial facebook live video responded, conspiring together to bring a variety of needs and help raise the tent. People from many volunteer groups. Lousiana Flood Relief, The Cajun Navy, The Cajun Army, #FillTheseTrucks, #BeSomeonesMiracle as well as individuals that just had to come and help.
The help continued on thru the next couple of days when Mrs Thibodeaux went on a hunt for an affordable camper, picked Mrs Diane up, and drove her to Lafayette to look at it and bring it home.
Mrs Diane is one of thousands here in Louisiana who still need help. In the past week we have discovered over 2,000 hungry people displaced in motels, fearing homelessness when their vouchers run out on 10/19/2016. They are sitting waiting for Marshall Law. When we asked them what they needed, they asked for shoes, toothbrushes, water and food. Many people ask me.. “where’s red cross?” “where’s FEMA?” “don’t they get foodstamps?”
If a person doesn’t own their home, they received one deposit of rental assistance. Anywhere from $800-$1800 in some cases. They are thankful for that, but want people to understand.. there isn’t many properties available to rent. They were flooded. They don’t have transportation if they only had liability insurance, so they are homeless with no transportation, one initial allotment of food stamps (7 weeks ago) and jobless because they can’t get to work, or their workplace was also flooded. At this point they are back to having nothing. Lots of people haven’t received any assistance, and are paying out of pocket. The full story on what we are finding at the motels is coming soon. Please join our FB page Storme’s Shelters to get involved. Please consider donating to help us help them! We accept PayPal donations stormesshelters@gmail.com or you can use Site To Store on the Walmart Wishlist
