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Beaumont Part Two

Beaumont sojourn, Part Two: On the one day we had to “tour” before the big rain began, (“we” being my brother, J.B., and sister-in-law, Dianna,) we set out for Cameron, Louisiana, which is considered to be where the eye of Rita came ashore. We specifically went to Holly Beach, a resort area near Cameron nearly identical to Crystal Beach, on Bolivar Peninsula, where they own a beach cabin.

These beach areas consist of several streets that run parallel to the beach. The houses are on stilts to avoid high water, and the most coveted houses face the sandy beach itself. Also, this is not low-priced real estate. The houses have beautiful tropical plants and palm trees and green grass decorating the lawns.

There was simply nothing left - even the grass was gone - either covered up or (I suspect) blown out of the ground. Pilings tilted crazily where houses had been, and here and there we could see an upended septic tank or a lonely toilet mired in a puddle. Many vehicles lay abandoned, crushed into balls of scrap metal, only a tire or a steering wheel or inflated air bags to indicate what they had been.

A vivid memory: a few red stop signs still standing crookedly, and Dianna carefully braking at a stop sign in the middle of nowhere - no houses, no grass, no trees, no nothing!

If not signs of life, there were signs of ownership: a rude wooden sign protruding from a leveled house site declaring that this is still 3524 Egret or a little flag on a short pole sticking up out of the sand. There wasn’t really any “rubble,” only bare sand and a little debris - the site had either already been cleaned off or the fierce wind had blown it away.

The devastation is massive, like the aftermath of a tornado from about Bolivar to Cameron and beyond and extending miles northward. We began to see trees down and countless roofs still patched with blue tarps (awaiting repairs) far north of Beaumont. Closer to the coast, in the Cameron area, trees were mainly just bare trunks sticking out of the ground - leaves and branches blown off.

In Port Arthur, there is the biggest pile of rubble I have ever seen, awaiting disposal somehow, which has been carted from as far away as Beaumont. But I have to end on an optimistic note. In Port Arthur, we visited the Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church in the Vietnamese area of the town. Out of respect for its congregation, the façade resembles a temple, and across the street there is the Queen of Peace Shrine, located in a park with a walking track featuring the 12 Stations of the Cross.

In the middle of the park there is a large sheltered freestanding statue of the Virgin Mary, which was untouched by the storm, and the church only sustained minor roof damage. I will never forget the elderly Vietnamese woman, on her walker, painfully creeping along, visiting the Stations of the Cross, (and “ancient” truly describes her,) while her companion, an elderly man almost as feeble on two canes, waiting patiently for her. Such is faith in the eye of the storms which assail us.

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