Skip to main content
The largest online newspaper archive
A Publisher Extra® Newspaper

The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 26

Publication:
The Boston Globei
Location:
Boston, Massachusetts
Issue Date:
Page:
26
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

26 THK BOSTON GLOBE THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 1992 Amid Andrew's debris, lost livelihoods By Dan MeGraw SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE buildings and snapping three-foot-thick tree limbs as it passed through town. Almost every building in this oil and fishing port was damaged, and nearly all of the residents who described riding out the storm said they thought the end was near. "Every now and then the house would rock," said Flora M. Hartman, who stayed home despite evacuation orders. "The walls were breathing in and out, just like a human being." "I figured God would take care of us so we stuck it out," she said of her decision to stay in her home.

Most of Morgan City's 14,000 residents left town Tuesday afternoon as the storm bore down on the Gulf Coast. About a thousand residents spent the night in city shelters, and city officials estimated that another 1,000 chose to spend the night in their homes. Those who remained in this bayou port endured six hours of winds that meteorolo mother-in-law's beauty parlor, For now, Morgan City will begin a massive cleanup that will take months. Electricity will not be restored for at least a week, officials say, and the city's sewage system cannot be run without the power. Damage was estimated at nearly $35 million, and residents are being asked to stay away for at least a few more days.

"This type of thing is unnerving, to say the least, but we look like we have said the city administrator, Larry Bergeron. "The whole town has to be rewired, and the streets have to be cleared. But we're really fortunate that no one was killed." And even William Peters can look on the bright side. Neither his home nor his tavern was insured, but he did not lose his life. "If the cops hadn't run me out of here last night," Peters said, "I would have been sleeping on that pool table right over there.

It would have been me underneath those bricks." 4 were not guaranteed of safety. Four generations of the Navarre family left town for a hotel 20 miles inland, only to have the windows in their room blow out. "We could hear the glass crackling, so we got out of the bed and went into the bathroom," James Navarre said. "We had to take my 80-year-old father-in-law and set him in the bathtub. All eight of us stayed in that bathroom all night." When he returned to his home yesterday morning, he found damage that was fairly typical a flattened garage, shingles in the front yard and water leaking in the dining room.

Many in Morgan City feared looting overnight, and some said that was the overriding reason for risking their lives as they waited for the storm to pass. "A lot of people think this brings out the best in people, but it brings out the worst in people, too," said Bud Lange as he nailed corrugated metal over the windows of his gists estimate reached 125 m.p.h. Residents reported chunks of aluminum siding propelled horizontally past their windows. Canopies at service stations were ripped from their concrete moorings. And roadside crawfish shacks were sent tumbling through fields of flattened sugar cane.

Even with the unfolding damage, most residents said it was the storm's seemingly unending noise that caused the most fear. From midnight until dawn, Morgan City residents listened to crackling electrical lines, shattering windows and the constant pounding of rain and wind on protective plywood. "It was the same sound as when you throw something into a whirring blender at high speed," Becky Todd said. "And it didn't stop for what seemed like hours. At one point, we heard some noise in the back yard.

Our big pecan tree twisted to the right, then to the left, then the whole tree split in two." Even those who evacuated Morgan City MORGAN CITY, La. When Hurricane Andrew ripped through this coastal port on Tuesday night, it took William Peters' new life with it. Peters thought he had fulfilled a longtime dream by opening his own tavern two weeks ago. But yesterday the bar had no roof, and the jukebox and pool tables were crushed under piles of bricks. His new house, meanwhile, had been cleaved in two by a huge pecan tree.

"Don't ask me too many questions because I'm liable to burst out crying," said Peters, 48, as he passed beers to a few friends in the rain. "I lost my home and my business in the same night. I'll drink today. Tomorrow, I'll probably sit down and cry." The hurricane made Morgan City its point of entry on the Gulf Coast late Tuesday, ripping out telephone poles, crushing Hurricane batters Louisiana; toll put at 20 in storm's wake w- 1 1 1 Tpmb If LaPlace: Killer if 1 Baton Rouge: tornado strikes. i Miss.

Power out at LOUISiana jC state Capitol 7fl i 1 JlV i I Biloxi Lafayette I A UKe si i i I -V "IX'. Morgan City Mississippi River New Orleans: Escapes-." I relatively unscathed; roads flooded, trees uprooted Venice yy. V. 'C- Grand Isle: Much" of Btk barrier island under 29 25 Miles Gulf of Afcjrico Tuesday v4ffA. water; power out 190 92 89 Place, between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

"It sounded like garbage cans rolling down the street," said a resident, Wyles Zeno. "Twenty seconds, and my house was gone." Residents returning to their homes later yesterday were hampered by gusting winds, high water containing snakes and alligators, and the continued threat of tornados. In Florida, meanwhile, the death toll was expected to rise when rescue officials reach areas that are still in- accessible. Deaths range from a 12-year-old girl who was struck in the head by flying wood to several people who drowned. Whole sections of southern Dade County were reduced to piles of rubble, and residents there continued to lack food, water and power.

Some expressed anger that relief was taking too long to reach them. Others drove long distances into northern Dade and bordering Broward counties to buy essentials, including portable generators and chain saws to cut away trees blocking streets and driveways. To alleviate the shortages, Dade County officials today are opening 11 food and water distribution centers. "It's been hectic, and all we're asking for is a little patience and people should know that we are going to get to them," said the Dade County manager, Joaquin Avino. HURRICANE Continued from Page 1 mobile homes and tearing roofs from houses.

Andrew spent its fury on the coast, and the National Hurricane Center downgraded it to a tropical storm by afternoon. At that point its winds, which had gusted past 160 m.p.h. when it hammered the Bahamas and South Florida early this week, dropped to 65 m.p.h. as it headed northward. Forecasters predicted its remnants could bring rain to New England by the weekend.

Louisiana authorities warned that it could take three weeks to restore electric power to some affected areas. Some communities also were without running water. President Bush toured the bayou area around New Iberia yesterday and appealed for "people to help their neighbors." He declared eight parishes of Louisiana a disaster area, entitling residents to $77 million for emergency relief and $10 million for cleanup. "The destruction from this storm goes beyond anything we have known in recent years," said Bush, who had toured South Florida on Monday. "Literally millions of American citizens today find themselves in the midst of personal devastation." In barreling through South Flor ida on Monday, the storm left as many 250,000 of the 1.9 million residents of Greater Miami homeless, authorities there said yesterday.

About 63,000 homes in Dade County, which includes Miami, were destroyed by the fierce winds that killed 15 persons there and caused upwards of $20 billion in damages. Louisiana officials said that unlike in South Florida, where high winds caused most of the damage, flooding was the more serious problem in their state. Additional factors, such as sparse population and early warnings, also helped to keep the death toll down. "Given what could have happened, I suppose we should be thankful," Gov. Edwin W.

Edwards said in a radio interview. "I guarantee you that if this storm had started in the Gulf of Mexico, there would have been a lot more deaths," said Capt. Rodney Jones of the Louisiana State Police. "We'd have never gotten those people out," he said of the 1.6 million evacuated. "It's terrible to say, but there's an old-time Louisiana mentality that I can ride this out.

But the pictures from Florida were sober-ing." In what might have been the most extensive Louisiana damage, a tornado spawned by the storm ripped a 6-mile swath through La KN1GHT-RIDDER TRIBUNE, GLOBE STAFF MAP A 7 a.m. to 7 p.ml curfew was still in effect last night as authorities tried to keep roads clear for emergency repair crews. Sightseers have posed a difficult problem for emergency personnel. Water service has been restored to much of Dade County except for communities in the extreme southern part. More than half of the 1.4 million customers of Florida Power and Light have power, but 600,000, all in Dade County, remain without electricity.

"We are slowly but surely beginning to get back to a semblance of normalcy," Avino said. Stan Grossfeld reported from La Place, and Diego Ribadeneira SOURCE: News reports Officials admitted that it has been difficult to channel relief into the most heavily hit areas. They attributed the delays to problems in finding usable and accessible sites to give out food and water'. Many of the homeless have moved in with families and friends or are living in shelters, officials said. Some are living in their damaged homes and building bonfires to cook.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency established headquarters yesterday in Florida to begin coordinating federal relief efforts, which includes procuring housing for the homeless, providing low interest loans to homeowners and business people and distributing emergency unemployment benefits to those left without a job. More than 3,000 National Guard troops remained in the area helping to provide security and aiding in the cleanup of debris. Looting problems have become relatively minimal, according to Fred Taylor, director of the Metro Dade Police Department. Resources, such as food, clothing, lumber and medicine, continued to pour into Dade County from across the country, an outpouring of concern that is overwhelming to Dade County authorities. To better coordinate the supply and need for resources, a resource management center will be opened today in Palm Beach County, north of Miami.

Meanwhile, the Miami Dolphins were considering moving their scheduled Sept. 7 home game against the Patriots to Foxborough. from Miami 1 'It sounded like a train, then the trailer just flew' I By Stan Grossfeld GLOBE STAFF ft. 't GLOBE STAFF PHOTO STAN GROSSFELD A neighbor tries to comfort Elizabeth Chambers yesterday morning as the resident of LaPlace, returned to discover her home had been destroyed and her possessions scattered by the violent storm. LAPLACE, La.

Bleary-eyed emergency technicians, working by flashlight, gently placed Dorothy Ceaser in a neck brace and back splint. Her shirt had dried blood on it. She tried to talk. "It sounded like a train and then the trailer just flew. Up and down, up and down, then I passed out," she said in a soft voice.

William Butler, her friend, raced across the street and brought Ceaser, her son and a friend to another house, where they waited with the injured woman overnight for rescuers. It was a tornado that struck in the darkness Tuesday night, surprising some residents who thought they would escape the full force of Hurricane Andrew, churning 100 miles away in the Gulf of Mexico. But the storm had also spawned tornadoes. There was no warning and nowhere to hide. In swampy Louisiana, there is no such thing as a storm cellar.

The tornado carved a 6- to 9-mile path of destruction in the town of LaPlace. One man was found dead in the rubble yesterday; more than two dozen were injured. Forty-eight homes were destroyed and more than 50 damaged. The hospital was hit and a medical center was destroyed. National Guardsman patrolled the streets.

The tornado had tossed cars around like bottle caps, uprooted trees and moved houses off their foundations. "We found one house a mile away," said Delton Arceneaux, director of St John The Baptist Parish. Most residents seemed still in a state of shock. "I was watching the Braves game on TV, happy 'cause I figured An- 7 Tin irf GLOBE STAFF PHOTO STAN GROSSFELD. Rescue workers move a tornado victim to an ambulance yesterday morning in LaPlace, which was hard hit by Andrew's spinoff.

room and then the ceilling fan fell on the bed and then the roof caved in," Elizabeth Chambers returned home yesterday to find her house a pile of bricks. Overturned cars lay drew passed us by said a neighbor, Raymond Johnson. "Then the house turned white with lightning, and it sounded like a train whistling A trailer crashed through my kitchen. I just grabbed my little girl and ran for the church." Lillie Hutchinson thinks the Lord was looking down on her. She had just returned from taking her children to a shelter when the tornado struck.

"I was in bed and I heard a crash and got up and ran out of the ZZ1 fx nearby and old 45 RPM records floated amid power lines, which were twisted like spaghetti. "Oh, Lord," she wailed, and pounded her chest with her fist before collapsing in a neighbor's arms. "Everything. Everything I own. GLOBE STAFF PHOTO STAN GROSSFELD A National Guard trooper patrols past a Reserve, resident who was searching for belongings, 2 wny:.

Get access to Newspapers.com

  • The largest online newspaper archive
  • 300+ newspapers from the 1700's - 2000's
  • Millions of additional pages added every month

Publisher Extra® Newspapers

  • Exclusive licensed content from premium publishers like the The Boston Globe
  • Archives through last month
  • Continually updated

About The Boston Globe Archive

Pages Available:
4,494,044
Years Available:
1872-2024