Why there were no looters in Lake Charles

Ok so I tricked and treated you ... here is my story

Published on October 3, 2005 By just john In Current Events

Just a handful of the folks at JU know I am from Lake Charles, LA but live in Shreveport now. Almost my entire family and my wife's family currently reside there, err well uh, well they reside scattered out in every cubby hole in my house and every other place we could find to put them.

I have a 3 bedroom 2 bath home. I have 2 - 80+ year olds, 2 - 40 somethings, 4 - 20 somethings and my wife and I. We also have 3 - poodles, a Wiener dog, a Chihuahua, a very large Boxer, and a Catahoula puppy. Two of those dogs are mine.

Yes that is 10 adults and 7 dogs.

My house has been chaos for a week and a half now. There is always some sort of food cooking or being eaten. One bathroom is always full (thank god for two baths). My computer has been overtaken by the 20 somethings and the adults use my wife's computer. There are many other issues but you know, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I have seen other places were there are large numbers of folks who don't get along, clean up, or respect each other. I am thankful that I have a wonderful group of people with me.

There are a lot of displaced people from south Louisiana right now. There are many who don't have a good place to run to. Some of my family stayed through the storm and left later when the conditions became too miserable to live.

The saddest commentary I have to offer is that trying to get them assistance in the state of Louisiana is horrible. One of my ‘borders’ went to Arkansas with her friends for the weekend. When they arrived at the hotel they were told "Your bill is taken care of. When you get settled in, the Red Cross office is just down the street and they will get you some assistance with food while you stay here."

Here in the great state of Louisiana we can't even get assistance with food. All of these people aren't getting paid what they would normally make. (They are getting at least half though - people in south Louisiana have learned how to take care of each other) They still need to eat. We just got the last of them approved for the FEMA deposit. Some of them were automatically declined because they were responsible and had homeowners insurance.

Let’s not help those who help themselves. Let’s only help those who lack the drive and ambition to make something better for themselves. This is frustration.

My wife and I both work and don't really have a whole day to go down and apply for the assistance we are entitled to. In the end we will probably do nothing.

All of our people qualify for food stamps due to the hurricane(yes I know that is a very un-PC term). The local offices computers were only set up to process Katrina victims up until Friday. All of the Rita victims have until Wednesday to apply before they stop providing benefits.

I am disgusted with my state and how they take care of their own. It is a good thing that the people from south west Louisiana are proud, hard working people who can take care of their own.

Comments

infantry wife

on Oct 03, 2005

Love the picture,that is great! Good article too, you and your family are in our prayers. We commend you for opening up your home and being so generous, that is so kind and gracious

Dynosoar

on Oct 03, 2005

Ya'll keep hangin' on, and remember, it only gets better as time goes on !

I experienced the same complications in the aftermath of flooding from Hurricane Floyd in 1999, albeit, our State and Local Govt seemed better prepared than La..

In particular, I found it puzzling that if you had good credit, owned property, had insurance, or basically seemed prepared in any way, the assistance was not meant for you.

APPLY FOR EVERYTHING !!!!!!! FAILURE TO DO SO WILL AFFECT YOUR QUALIFICATIONS LATER....do not let pride stand in your way.

Good credit automatically disqualified you for federal grants. Low interest loans were available, and the State matched any loan ammount with a grant equal to 1 years payment. Self employed did qualify for emergency unemployment, food stamps, and the IRS allowed for losses to be taken in bulk for the tax year.

But, if you owned nothing, demonstrated an inability to honor contractual agreements ( bad credit ) and had no insurance, all levels of government came to your aid.

Free housing, to include utilities ( in some cases for over 2 years ) grants that averaged $13,000.00 ( 4 member household ) vouchers for clothing and furniture provided by Red Cross and Salvation Army, unemployment benefits for those who were not even working pre-disaster for over a year, and generous food distribution by various samaritan organizations.

90 days after the flood I was advised to continue to suspend collection activities on delinquent accounts receivables. Many of my debtors were being housed, gratis, in several FEMA trailer parks, they had received on average 13K in grants, yet they were not paying their car notes. My losses from the flood exceeded 300K, yet all I qualified for was loans.

120 days after the disaster, I spoke with one debtor who had received a grant of 20k. I counseled here to buy a CD in order to save some of her windfall, she responded that she already had, and it was a 10 disc changer too ! 30 days later I repossessed her car for non-payment, when it was 6 months past due.

I lost some inventory to the flooding, it was covered by insurance, I lost a lot of accounts that were partially repaid by insurance, but the bulk of my losses came from non-payment and "dissapearance" of collateral and debtor. I even discovered that several of my customers had been given grants to cover the loss of their automobiles, but the Govt agency had failed to include the lienholder on the check...my only recourse was to sue the grant receipient. ( right, like I want the publicity of suing flood victims )

The grants were for re-establishing homes, ha, the bulk of those receiving assistance stayed at those FEMA parks until they had to be evicted 2 years later ( why leave free rent, utilities included ? ) The monies were wasted on whatever ( I had a friend who contracted with FEMA to do maintanance in one park, he spoke of several trailers having the doorways cut out and duct-taped back in place in order to install big screen TV's....20% of the trailers were salvaged once the parks were closed )

Oh well, I've ranted enough, I ended up filing Chapt 11 a few years after the disaster ( weakened financially after the storm an embezzler finished me off ) But I'm back in business, even sold a car the other day to the CD investor......

So it goes.............

Dr Guy

on Oct 03, 2005

Just an aside. Chihuahuas are called chopper dogs.

I hope La gets its act together soon. They are running out of scapegoats.

just john

on Oct 03, 2005

Love the picture,that is great! Good article too, you and your family are in our prayers.

Thank you ... It's not hard to do when you know that any one of them would open their door to me.

just john

on Oct 03, 2005

Ya'll keep hangin' on, and remember, it only gets better as time goes on !

We do have good news. More power is being turned on daily in Lake Charles.

It won't happen too soon. My wife's grandfather refuses to die anywhere but home. He is fighting hard to get home and the more good news we hear the stronger his will to continue gets.

just john

on Oct 03, 2005

Just an aside. Chihuahuas are called chopper dogs

How about we just call this one Humper. He humps the boxers leg (even while he walks around) and every other male dog in the house. That dog 'gets it up' more often that a teen age boy in a strip club.

Dr Guy

on Oct 03, 2005

How about we just call this one Humper.

That works too. There use to be a Humper dog in our neighborhood who did the same thing to our German Sheppard. It was a wonder the sheppard never ate him!

dharmagrl

on Oct 03, 2005

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' 'bout! That picture epitomizes my family's attitude towards looters. All of us, even our kids have guns and we're all trained and proficient in their use. In the event that we're faced with a catastrophic event like Rita or Katrina, we all know what we're going to do....and protecting ourselves and what we've got is number one on the list.

Good on y'all!

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!