DENHAM SPRINGS/WALKER, La. (BRPROUD) — It’s been two weeks since Hurricane Ida hit, and while things are starting to get back to normal, many are still without power.
Livingston Parish residents are tired and frustrated, going on 15 days without any electricity. Some of these residents are right off of Walker South Road in Denham Springs. Power lines and transformers are still down across the area.
David Howard holds down the fort as family members like his son and mother go to cooler locations.
“The hurricane hit at a bad time. My mom had no stents put in her heart for surgery on days that the hurricane hit. So when she tried to come home and do it without [any] electricity, she couldn’t do it. She had to go to a family member’s home” he said.
“I know they got a big job on their hands, a lot of stuff to do, but some people got electricity around here and no, we don’t know,” he added.
Nearby resident Matt Campbell says their storm started after a tree fell on their home during the night. They were able to get out safely but left without a home.
“Thirty minutes after the hurricane came in. Three trees started to crash into our house, destroying a house. We were a little banged up and scared, of course,” he said.
Campbell said, thankfully, his landlord had another residency he was able to settle them into.
“Since we’ve been here 14 days, we haven’t had power. We’re spending about 35, 40 dollars a day on gas having to eat out, you know, every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner, sometimes skipping one. But it’s, you know, for four people, it’s pretty expensive,” said Campbell.
They are using a generator to power up the important things, like Campbell’s oxygen tank.
“I can’t even run my main oxygen because it uses so much power, it uses more gas, so I have to run it off of my little backpack,” he said.
Angela Miller said she is overwhelmed.
“The kids are hot, they’re restless, they’re going to school tired, a lot of them. I mean, we try our best but [there are] times we can’t go get charcoal. We can’t find charcoal,” she said.
Other neighbors also struggling to get by without power.
“You’ve got a couple of houses down, they’ve got COVID trying to breathe through all this, and I mean, we’ve called it into DEMCO, either I get hung up on I’ve been blocked by them. I can’t use my telephone to call them no more,” said Miller.
Miller says she’s trying to find some way out of the darkness, reaching out to FEMA and getting creative to meet their needs.
“We’ve got the water slide, and that’s where we’ve been taking our bath, pretty much that they just blew up. We let the bottom of the little pool area fill up. That’s how we’ve been doing the best we could,” she said.
With trees still sitting on top of wires, they don’t know when it’ll get better.
“It’s been hard. We all feel skipped over,” said Campbell.
“I am trying to stay positive, taking one day at a time and just hoping that either I go to sleep and wake up hearing the power on or I wake up one morning and the power [is] on,” said Howard.