BOGALUSA, La. (WGNO) – Organizers with the Museum of Native American Culture walked through Cassidy Park Monday surveying the damage from a massive flash flood.
“When the water got in and push through the back door, it just became a rushing rapid,” said museum vice president Robin Day. “Most everything in here that was four feet below was damaged in some sort of way.”
The Pioneer Museum and the Museum of Native American Culture are landmarks in Bogalusa. Last week’s record-breaking rains hit the city hard during the early morning hours Friday causing flash floods. The water washed almost everything away and left behind large sinkholes throughout the park.
The damage is hard for organizers to imagine. “We had a drum back here made very authentically, with the hide and it’s gone. We had some tall moccasins here and they’re gone.”
Pottery and arrowhead necklaces are among the many artifacts, some a hundred years old, now missing.
“When the glass broke out of the windows, the whole exhibit went out the door.”
What’s left behind is now covered in mud and branches.
But Days says the museum, which open six years ago, will be rebuilt.
“We pray that we will be bigger and better than ever. It is gonna take a lot of work, but we are gonna get it done.”
The below videos were taken Friday morning.