Lou Major Sr. and his affair with Katrina

Having been to Russia twice, once actually on a Wick Companyventure, I have a fondness for the downtrodden people of that vast land. Thus,it was not very nice that a woman named Katrina should bring such misery to meand our people.

But she did.

I've been through a lot of hurricanes in my lifetime, ridingthem all out whereever we lived at the time. But there has never been anythinglike this ... never.

Peg and I, my daughter Christie and her husband Rick, my sisterDoedy , my grandson, Paul, and my nephew's wife Carolyn, gathered at my house inBogalusa, LA two days before Katrina actually hit the Louisiana coastline. Wewere able to follow the storm's path on television, but hoped against hope thatit would make that sudden northward turn and dip back to the east. It didn'thappen.

It hit my small town with a fury. Less than a hundred feetbehind my house a tornado ripped through in the dark, leaving a mangled mass ofpine trees. As fate would have hit, not one of the 15 huge pine trees in myfront yard went down. Shingles were ripped from top story roof of the house, thepool pump house was blown away and splintered limbs littered the entiregrounds.

But we were all safe, thank God.

My second house in Slidell, also two-story, was blasted by 176mph winds and water surge. The entire bottom floor was destroyed, but somehowthe upper floor made it. My party barge is still hanging in the sling in thedock area which is now a shambles.

But nobody in my family and no close friends were injured(except for my broken index finger on my right hand suffered cleaning up themess).

The most difficult part of the aftermath other than the clean-upwas finding gasoline for a generator I was able to buy, and getting ice to helpdeal with the horribly hot temperatures which followed Katrina's unwelcomevisit. I spent many hours in line at the Bogalusa Industrial Park waiting forlocal prison inmates and National Guardsmen to give me some bags of ice. Myroutine was to make a visit every two days for two weeks.

The Duke Power Company from North Carolina sent in a hugecaravan of boom trucks and electricians to put our wrecked power system back inplace. At my house, there was no electricity for 17 days, every one of them withtemperatures in the mid 90's. Our days were spent on the front porch with asmall fan run off the generator. Sleeping at night was virtually impossiblebecause of the heat and mosquitos outside made sleeping there out of thequestion.

What softies we have become.

But above it all, in this small town, there has been anoutpouring of love and concern, one for another. Baptist Church groups fromIllinois seemingly turned up overnight to offer food and water and ice. Helpcame from everywhere. The American Red Cross and the National Guard wereGodsends. I can't say the same for FEMA, the federal agency which simply failed.It was almost three weeks before they showed up at Bogalusa.

Our company CEO John Mathew has exhibited genuine concern andlove for our people down here, showing up regularly and being the visible signof strength that was so badly needed. Publisher J. Kennon of Covington andBogalusa, small in stature, but very large in leadership and stability, wasright there on the front line rallying the troops. My good friend and buddyTerry Maddox, publisher at Slidell, lost his beautiful home in Eden Isles, butlike the vast majority of people who were temporarily bowed, will rise again andrebuild.

There will be thousands of stories about Katrina, the good, thebad and the ugly. She had it all.

She gave us her best shot, but we took it on the chin. Westaggered, but did not fall.

A Chat with Lou Major Sr.

There have been so many people to thank for all their help inthe aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that it's truly difficult to make an adequatelist.

Be that as it may, before another day goes by, I want to thanksome really great people from a personal standpoint.

All those men and women out at the Bogalusa Industrial Park whoworked hour after hour in that hot sun loading up my trunk with bags oflife-saving ice, cases of bottled water and the MRE's. I don't know who they allwere, but I do know the National Guard and the inmates from WashingtonCorrectional Institute were there day after day. I had a routine of every thirdday for a little more than two weeks of making the drive from my house out tothe long line. But it was worth the wait. I have no idea how we could have madeit without ice and water.

All those great Baptist people from Illinois who rushed inimmediately to set up a food, water and ice center on Avenue F by the FirstBaptist Church. Their dedication and hard work were incredible.

Lee Varnado from Baton Rouge, whose grandmother lives across thestreet from me, must have been dropped out of heaven. We were sitting around onthe front porch in the blazing heat a day or so after the storm and he came overand said he had an extra generator and would sell it to me if I needed it;otherwise he was taking it back to Baton Rouge. He even took it out of the box,set it up for me and got 5 gallons of gas for it to get me started. Wow. Lee isthe son of Don Varnado, formerly of Franklinton.

The Emergency Room staff at the Medical Center. I got in fairlyquickly with a badly broken right index finger the Saturday after Katrina. Ibroke it removing a heavy metal boat from a trailer in my back yard.

Also, to young Caroline Heintz of Covington, who got her dad,Dr. Ludwig Heintz, to take a look at my finger with no notice. And also to Dr."Lud" , who got an orthopedic surgeon friend of his at St. Tammany Hospital, Dr.Celentano, to come out into the waiting room to take a look at my finger. Hesaid the ER people in Bogalusa did a good job.

Thanks also to the two of my boys who live in the U.S., Lou Jr.in Virginia and Steve in Georgia, for coming over on Labor Day weekend to helpwith some immediate clean-up needs. And to daughter Christie from Covington whowas there to help out with everything. Because we had no power, no phone, notmuch of anything, Lou Jr. took Peg back to Fairfax, VA where she stayed untillast week.

Thanks to all those people from Duke Power in North Carolina,those Birmingham, AL policemen, those Pennsylvania Guardsmen, the American RedCross and yes, even those nameless people from FEMA who came in to do a job.Remember, the people who came here to help were not the ones making thebehind-the-scene decisions. FEMA came in for a lot of criticism, but the peoplehere on the front line were certainly not to blame.

Thanks for our newspaper company's CEO and my successor, JohnMathew, for his on-going concern for all the employees at our newspapers inBogalusa, Covington, Slidell and LaPlace and later for our newspaper in NewIberia, who were spared the brunt of Hurricane Rita. Also I appreciate theconcern shown for me by Daily News Publisher J Kennon and the new GeneralManager, John Walker. They constantly checked on me to see that I was okay andoffered to do anything they could.

And without fail, I want to thank Count Alessandro GiuseppeAntonio Anastasio Volta. The Italian scientist invented the electric battery in1800 and I don't know how any of us would have made it without him.

So thanks, Giuseppe.

And my final thanks is to all of our Daily News readers andadvertisers who have been so patient while gargantuan efforts were being made toget the newspaper back on the street. The presses are rolling again at "TheNewspaper That Cares About the People."