Frightening Early Image From Cameron, LA

[recmod]

I just found this recent aerial shot of Cameron, Louisiana (which I uploaded to my hurricane website)....this looks REALLY bad. I think the early optimistic "light damage estimates" may have been a bit premature....



--Lou

[Ixolib]

I heard that!! WOW...

[CharleySurvivor]

OMG, I'm speechless!

I hope nobody had decided to ride it.

[cycloneye]

I am speechless looking at that photo.

[Buck]

[HurryKane]

OMG, I'm speechless!

I hope nobody had decided to ride it.

According to the Shreveport Times, all but three idiotic men left. Part of the article is quoted below.

http://tinyurl.com/99ewm

Cameron empty but for a few holdouts

September 24, 2005
By Yancey Roy
Gannett News Service
and Brett Martel
The Associated Press

Nearly all of low-lying, marsh-filled Cameron Parish evacuated before Hurricane Rita made landfall, which it is expected to do early this morning.

Except for three 40-something-year-old men who, at last check, still were still in a mobile home in the town of Cameron near the Gulf of Mexico, officials said late Friday.

“The military went to their house. The sheriff’s office went to their house. OEP went to their house,’’ said Sheriff Theos Duhon, referring to Office of Emergency Preparations. “We talked to them for two days. They said they were not going to go out.’’

That flies in face of 99.9 percent of the 9,500 or so folks in this parish. Ever since Hurricane Audrey roared through in 1957, killing about 500 people, residents generally bolt as soon as there is a hurricane warning.

“Their parents went through Audrey,’’ Duhon said incredulously.

At 5 p.m. Friday, on the way to Lake Charles, sherriff’s deputies placed road blocks at the Cameron line more than 20 miles north of the holdouts.

“If they stayed where they stayed,’’ Duhon said, “well, we’ll find them when we get back.’’

[LAwxrgal]

Hope those three men contacted their next of kin.

Cameron is virtually destroyed.

[CharleySurvivor]

Some people just don't want to listen. I hope they changed their mind and left before it was too late.

[Ixolib]

Of course, we gotta realize that most of lower Cameron was/is marshy and very low-lying - probably only a few feet above MSL for a long ways inland. But still, that pic shows what is meant by the term "wiped clean".

I'm thinking that most of the structures right on the beach (well, "shoreline" since there are really no "beaches" in LA.) were used as vacation or fishing get-a-ways, and I'd imagine that others were permanent homes for some of the residents. Kinda like Gulf Shores used to be back in the good old days of the 60's and 70's - minus the wonderful beach.

But, like the other poster said - 99.9% in that Parish know hurricanes very well, and they know when to leave. Thank goodness for that...

[brunota2003]

I'm thinking that most of the structures right on the beach (well, "shoreline" since there are really no "beaches" in LA.) were used as vacation or fishing get-a-ways, and I'd imagine that others were permanent homes for some of the residents.

Well, LA now has beaches there, since there are no houses there anymore...

[simplykristi]

I am not surprised. But it still takes my breath away. I knew someone was going to take it on the chin. There was never any footage of Cameron shown on TV yesterday. I am sure that there are scenes like that acorss the very small communities along the LA Gulf Coast.

Kristi

[vbhoutex]

Lou, can you give us info on where that picture came from? I am not doubting that Cameron was virtually wiped off the map, but that picture looks a lot like one I saw after the tsunami. I know you would not post something without trying to verify it, but we have seen no images coming out of that area. In fact, supposedly helicopters were not being allowed into that area, and our local news choppers who were doing aerial surveys live yesterday, never did make it to that area even though they were very close to it. Just curious. No matter, we know Cameron was devastated. There is no way it could not have been.

[WindRunner]

And those three men decided to stay in a mobile home

Idiotic might not be quite the right word here . . .

[tropicana]

Mind-numbing photo! Thanks for posting it!

According to my map I am using, Cameron was built on marshy swampland (at least originally), so I guess like reclaimed land. I'm not positive.
But there are so many other tiny towns where the Eastern eyewall came through that I haven't heard anything from as of yet, like Holly Beach, Creole, Grand Lake, Hackberry, Sulphur, and a little further east Forked Island . I have no idea the population of these tiny towns, but I would think the damage and storm surge would have been horrific.

CNN showed home video of storm surge inundating someone's house on the shores of Vermillion Bay. The guy had the presence of mind to get his video camera and take footage when the water swamped the house...they eventually fled to the attic and used a shotgun to blow a hole in the wall of the attic to get out.

-justin-

[Derek Ortt]

if that photo is legit, shows how destructive Rita was able maybe that Audrey was not as intense as believed, since it did not do that to Cameron

[weatherFrEaK]

More photos here...including the one in the original post.

http://forum.lakecharles.com/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/14/t/000023

[jwayne]

if that photo is legit, shows how destructive Rita was able maybe that Audrey was not as intense as believed, since it did not do that to Cameron

ortt, I am really starting to question your met/learning abililties. Let me help you:

1. katrina had over a 25 foot storm surge with 120 mph winds at miss. coast.

2. rita had huge storm surge (don't know how much yet) with 120 mph winds.

your job as met is to try to figure out why. If I and others can do it, you should be able to do it.

probable reason: cat 5 status of both out in gulf combined with huge wind fields.

don't take the easy way out and just say "audrey must not have been as strong as they said." come on now!!!!

[Droop12]

I knew that Cameron and the Holly Beach area got the worst of it. But as usual, it takes about a day for the media to figure it out and not focus on Galveston and Houston. It goes to show a crappy looking Cat 3 can still do catastrophic damage. I bet the winds there may have been to near Cat 3 force so the NHC's 120mph seems like a good estimate.

[skysummit]

WOW....there is no beach left. Looking at those pictures of the small communities in that part of the state really show that Rita was still a powerful storm at landfall. Thank God she didn't hit in a more populous location.

[Air Force Met]

bttt