Cameron, Louisiana

When you think of hurricanes and Louisiana, the first one that comes to mind for most people is Katrina and its impact in New Orleans. However, the southern states were also hit by another monster storm, Hurricane Rita, only a month after Katrina. I found it interesting how the media viewed each hurricane depending on how it affected the public. Katrina was one of the most deadly and costly hurricanes in American history, however the storm was not as intense as Rita. Hurricane Katrina was formed on August 23, 2005 and made its way into the Gulf of Mexico before hitting land south of New Orleans. It had recorded wind speeds of 280 km/h. However, the most alarming fact is the 81.2 billion US$ in damages. It dissipated on August 31, 2005. However, I learned more about Rita during the summer, and was able to see the damages almost a year after the event. Rita was formed on September17, 2005 and made its way through the Gulf of Mexico along a similar course as Katrina, except Rita hit land a few hundred kilometers to the west of Katrina's path. It only killed 120 people (7 directly) and had 11.3 billion US$ in damages (in comparison to Katrina), however it affected people on the other side of the state in a similar fashion to Katrina in New Orleans. In my previous article, I had mentioned the town of Cameron, a port town on the Gulf coast of Louisiana. After I arrived in Louisiana and did a week of safety training courses, I made my way to Cameron to move into the boat and install the equipment and hardware we were going to use for our survey. The drive to the town is one that I will never, ever forget for the rest of my life. I was driving an SUV and was by myself for the two and half hour trek. When I was about 45 minutes from Cameron, I started driving south towards the coast. Louisiana is very flat due to its location relative to the Mississippi River. Over millions of years, the topography has been flattened due to the ever-fluctuating meander pattern of the river. While I drove south, I remember that the pavement for the road was elevated about 5 or 6 feet and there was water and swamp all around, though it was not very thick and I could see for a few kilometers in any direction. The road was relatively straight, and I remember I came to a huge opening and throughout the fields I could see houses scattered randomly. When Rita hit, there was a huge storm surge resulting in an 18 foot flood that had picked up the houses and moved them several kilometers. I remember that I had a very upsetting feeling and it was then that I actually realized what the storm must have been like. Before going to Cameron, I was told by some of my coworkers that it was one of the most devastated towns and that it was very intense. I did not have a camera for my drive, but like I said, it is a mental image that I will never forget. As I approached the town, it was like I was watching a movie. The town of Cameron is about the size of downtown Bridgewater ( 2000-3000 people) and after Rita hit, there were only a few buildings left standing. The town hall/library building was damaged, but held together. There was also a store, and the house of one of the richest men in the town. He had his house built on stilts 15 feet off the ground in case of a hurricane. Every other building in the town was demolished, some of them were actually the houses I had seen in the fields on my drive. The next day, I walked around the town by myself and took pictures of what I saw. As I began my work on the boat, some of the workers on the boat that were not part of our survey crew (there were two crews, the surveyors and the boat crew who were locals) had told me about the storm and how it had changed their lives. The town had been rebuilt, but it was all FEMA trailers. The thing I found most interesting was when I walked around the town, there were tons of properties that consisted of a concrete foundation with nothing on top, and a trailer set up beside the foundation, and a flagpole on almost every front lawn with an American flag. I thought about the fact that even though they had lost practicly everything, they still had some hope and some national pride. I know that this article is not exactly about the physical geography of the ocean, but I feel that it is definatly related since the Gulf of Mexico is a part of the lives of all the Cameron residents, and living in a close proximity to the ocean and hurricane territory was a risk that all the locals were willing to take. Also, I find it amazing that the water can rise up to 18 feet above normal sea level and stay like that for weeks on end. I have added some pictures from the day that I walked around. In a nutshell, the entire town looked like the houses in the pictures and this was 10 months after the storm.