Some Go Home on Temporary Pass

GRETNA, La. -- The signal came shortly before dawn Monday. Police cars blocking the four-lane highway eased out of the way, opening a path into Jefferson Parish that fleets of private cars had waited all night to follow.

The response resembled a Wild West land rush with squealing tires.

An estimated 50,000 returning residents, most of whom slept in their cars on the highway Sunday night, sped into the township in a race to return to their abandoned houses, if only temporarily.

Swerving around toppled trees and downed power lines, most found their homes intact. The parish, the state’s second-largest with 480,000 residents, was spared the widespread flooding that left more than 80% of adjacent New Orleans underwater. About 15% of the parish is flooded, said parish Councilman Chris Roberts.

Although some homes are underwater, Roberts said, most are intact. Thousands lost sections of roofs and siding, and many were struck by falling trees or limbs. Electricity, phones and water were knocked out, and stores had been looted.

Even so, the scale of destruction and displacement is far less than in New Orleans. And Roberts said Monday night that electricity had returned to some municipal buildings, and some residents had a trickle of water.

The residents’ return came as parish officials condemned the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other national and state relief organizations for failing to offer assistance. On Monday, a week after the hurricane, the parish has received little outside help, officials said, and is relying on municipal and volunteer assistance.

Outside a local Best Buy store, residents who had remained in their homes lined up Monday for food, water and supplies provided by a radio station and the Sheriff’s Department in Hazard, Ky. Some FEMA crews arrived Sunday, handing out water and ice and preparing to process claims, Roberts said. The American Red Cross never showed up, he said.

Residents like Michael Hollier, 51, said he had given up on FEMA and the Red Cross after surviving the week in a friend’s home because his rented home was flooded. He was waiting in a long line for canned food and water at the Best Buy.

“This is the first time I’ve seen anything available for people,” Hollier said.

Despite concern that permitting residents to return might be dangerous, the parish opened the neighborhoods until Thursday, allowing residents to check their homes and retrieve belongings. Workers will begin area-wide cleanup and repairs after the parish is again evacuated.

Meanwhile, there is a 6 p.m. curfew.

One of the first to arrive back home at first light Monday was Mike Buclalan, 29. He pulled his SUV, loaded with three dachshunds and supplies, into the driveway of his one-story home on Bonnie Ann Drive. He and his wife had been staying with friends in Jackson, La.

His wife, Marie, rushed inside, searching for her cat, Harry Potter. The animal ran across her path and she scooped him up. “He looks fine,” she said. “Just a little frazzled.”

The house was fine too, for the most part. Its roof and siding were intact, although the backyard fence had been blown over. A powerful stench rose up from meat rotting in the kitchen freezer.

“Oh, man, I’m pretty happy,” Mike Buclalan said, inspecting the living room. “I’d have to say I’m pleasantly surprised. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

The damage was worse a few miles away.

Buclalan’s mother-in-law, Helene Dinh, 61, had summoned up the courage to return at dawn to her brick ranch house on the southern edge of the parish.

But when she saw the ruins of her beloved garden and realized that her prized koi had died in their pond, she let out a tiny sob, then fell into the arms of her son-in-law.

“Oh, my fish,” she said, and the tears came.

“I was afraid to come back -- it hurts so much to see this,” she said, staring at a tree that had slammed down across her front yard.

Water had been blown into her living room and her elaborate backyard garden was a wreck. She couldn’t find her four cats, and she broke down again.

It was Dinh’s second time as a refugee. She and her husband came to the United States in 1975 from Vietnam. Her husband died in 1984. Gardening had become her therapy, she said, but now her lemon and persimmon trees have been crushed. Her six dead koi were belly up in her pond, smelling strongly of decay.

But two of her cats, Tabby and Meow-Meow, crept into the yard. Dinh let out a cry and said, “Tabby, you came home!”

Buclalan tried to console his mother-in-law, mentioning that her orchids had survived.

“All in all, we did OK,” he said. “All we asked for was four walls and a ceiling. We’re lucky.”

In nearby Timberlane Estates, Mike “Opie” Johnson, a ship’s third mate, said he felt like a thief as he made his way to the upstairs bedroom in his mother-in-law’s soggy mansion. He filled a pillowcase with her finest jewelry, as instructed by his wife, who had called from Texas.

Johnson reported back to his wife by cellphone that the pool was a mess and that trees were down all over.

Otherwise, he said, the house was damp but secure.

“I was scared to come back,” said Johnson, 37, who had been living on a coastal tanker Stone Buccaneer, which leaked 50,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico when its storage tank was ruptured by Katrina. “I heard there were looters everywhere, but turns out there weren’t too many looters in this parish.”

Johnson rushed through the two-story mansion, leaving the rotting freezer meat for later, and walked out with his mother-in-law’s parakeet, Tweety. Weary of the ship and storms, he put the bird in his Buick for the long drive to Texas.

Along the West Bank of the Mississippi, at a collection of low-slung, cheaply built bungalows, Norman and Leslie Mitchell inspected their yellow one-story rental. The house was rank, the wall-to-wall carpet squishy.

Norman Mitchell, 63, a retired Navy man, hopped out of his SUV and kicked the bumper of his second car, a Camry he had left at the house.

“Your car OK, Daddy?” asked his daughter Kionne, 21.

“Let’s see if it’s flooded.” He opened the driver’s door and recoiled. “Yeah, it’s flooded. Whew, it stinks in here.”

The family, which includes two other daughters -- Ashley, 17, and Aisheenard, 16 -- packed up what they could for the drive to Corpus Christi, where they had been welcomed at a Navy base.

It was not a particularly sad occasion, for the two youngest daughters were able to go to school in Texas, far from shuttered schools in Louisiana.

“We are alive,” Mitchell said. “The rest of this stuff are material things. God will provide.”

Nearby, in an upscale West Bank neighborhood of custom homes, Kirby and Isabel Marcombe returned to find virtually nothing amiss. They even had running water.

They had brought along a generator, 15 gallons of gasoline and enough food to last for months.

No matter what the parish government said, they weren’t going anywhere on Thursday. They intended to stay put, right at home.