Residents in a Louisiana city devastated by 2020 hurricanes are still far from recovery
Although it has been nearly four years since hurricanes Laura and Delta decimated southwest Louisiana and caused an estimated $22 billion in damage nationwide, some residents say they are still far from recovery
LAKE CHARLES, La. — Every other day Lois Malvo waits for her son to bring six buckets of water from a spigot in the backyard. He then bathes his 78-year-old mother using water heated on the stove and washes her with a spray pump he bought online.
It’s been four years since hurricanes Laura and Delta decimated Lake Charles in southwest Louisiana, and Malvo is still without plumbing. Unable to afford repairs without federal funds she fears will never arrive, Malvo lives in a crumbling home where the floor sags and wires poke from the ceiling.
In the midst of peak hurricane season, recovery continues at a creeping pace in a community the Weather Channel once called America’s “most weather-battered city.”
Some residents in Lake Charles, a mostly Black city where one-fifth of the population live in poverty, are still stuck in similar conditions. They fear they’ve slipped through the cracks, even as some have been approved for federal funds but face a nearing deadline to close on their award or risk losing it.
Some homeowners are caught in legal limbo with insurance companies they say gravely underestimated their damage. And others still can't find housing after the hurricanes destroyed apartment complexes and neighborhoods.
“It’s very, very frustrating to live like this,” Malvo said. “Sometimes I’m so down I just feel like giving up.”
Hurricane Laura tore through Lake Charles in August 2020 as one of the most powerful storms to strike Louisiana. Six weeks later, Hurricane Delta followed the same destructive path.
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