BAYOU BLUE (WGNO)— A few seconds in the dark Tuesday night left a lot of damage in the daylight Wednesday.
After multiple tornado warnings, people in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes are picking up after the only one known to touchdown.
No injuries were reported as a result of this brief spin-up tornado, but some homeowners in the community of Bayou Blue still have their work cut out for them.
Bayou Blue volunteer firefighters were back at it Wednesday morning.
“It was a little bit before two o’clock [a.m.] before I got home, and first thing this morning, we were re-dispatched out here to assist everyone in daylight hours,” said Ryan Fanguy, the assistant fire chief at Bayou Blue Volunteer Fire Department.
The volunteer fire department responded to the Bayou Bend subdivision after receiving a call around 10:30 p.m. about significant damage.
“So, we deployed tarps on the roofs, we had missing roofs, we had windows broken in,” Fanguy explained. “We had a motor home flipped over, so we immediately started tarping roofs, got on people’s roofs, trying to save their property as best we could.”
A family who lives on Holley Street says the tornado touched down for about ten seconds. Once it was safe, they walked outside to assess the damage.
“Stuff was everywhere,” Todd Thibodeaux, whose house was damaged by the tornado, said. “We had the awning just banging away, what was left of it, and everybody was just shocked by what just happened.”
Some affected by the tornado wonder if this is the new normal.
“It was unheard of to hear of a tornado in south Louisiana, and in the recent ten years, there’s tornados everywhere,” Thibodeaux said. “I have a camp in north Louisiana on Toledo Bend, and I was struck this year by a tornado up there, so it’s starting to become a common thing around here.”
The community is also receiving assistance from the local group Team Restore, which is funded by businesses in the area.