5 years ago...

[Ray]

I was born and raised in Cameron. I lived there for 36 years.
When I first went back, I couldn't find anything. All the land marks were gone, except for the curves in the road. I couldn't find anyone's yard on a straight away road.
Most of the trees, fences, barns, houses... everything was GONE.
My little sisters house disappeared, my dads house filled up with water. My older sisters house, which was once mine, was left mostly unharmed except for rain water that came in from the roof after all the vents and shingles were blown off.
I helped my dad clean out his house, put in new windows and doors, elect., a/c and sheet rock. When Ike filled her up again, I said no more. He was on his own. He tore it down.
When we first started cleaning out his house, I had 7 others helping me. Next day I had 2 others with me. After that, I was on my own. No elect., no running water, no food, no store, no gas/diesel, nothing but Nat'l Guard who came by to visit now and then. They gave me MRE's. I ate one for lunch and one for supper every day. After a few days, they told me I was supposed to eat only one per day. They had like 5000 calories in each one and were fortified with carbs to keep your energy up. I was eating 10K calories per day.
Every day on my days off, I drove down there with a generator, water, food(which I heated up on the dashboard), soap, extra clothes, tractor and a big first aid kit. No cell phone reception for the first 3 weeks. If you went down at day light or stayed after dark, mosquitoes would eat you alive.
I told all my family that I would help rebuild, but never clean up a house again. That killed me.
You couldn't listen to country music while down there, it was too depressing. I had hard rock blaring all day to keep my spirits up and keep me going.
My dad just had prostate surgery, I had a bad back, everyone else was working or had their own agenda due to the hurricane.
I have a couple of DVD's with pictures right after the roads were cleared. I will see if I can load them on Youtube.