South East Texas 2/99 Flood

This is one of the many Disasters that happened in our area
of East and South East Texas. It is February, 1999 and it has
been raining hard for several days all around us. We have a few
dams and large reservoirs north of us. The reservoirs were getting
very full from all of the rain. One of these is Toledo Bend Reservoir,
which goes from Joaquin, Texas down to Toledo Village, Texas and
is actually a part of the Sabine River that divides Texas and Louisiana.
The "powers that be" decided to open the flood gates to let some
of the water out. They opened all 12 of the flood gates and by doing
this, caused some major flooding on both sides of the Sabine River
from just below the dam at Toledo Village down to West Bluff, which
is a part of Orange, Texas. It is approximately 100 miles from the
Toledo Bend Dam down to Orange, Texas.
 

On this Disaster, I was assigned to the Family Service Function.
This is the function that helps the people with flood related losses
such as clothing, shoes, food, bedding, appliance repairs and if
needed, rental of another place to stay. It is done on a person
to person basis and what their needs are according to their losses.
 

When the people come in for assisstance, you check the Damage
Assessment Book to verify their address. After doing this, you sit
down with the people and talk to them to find out what their needs
are. In Family Services, you sometimes have to do what is called a
"Home Visit" because the Damage Assessment Volunteers are only
allowed to look at the property from the street. We are not allowed
to go onto someone's property or into their houses without their prior
permission. Even then, they either have to be there or have someone
they have appointed as their representative to be there to meet us and
let us into the house to do an internal examination of damages caused
to their home and belongings. Then we go back to the Service Center
to do what we can to provide for their immediate disaster caused needs.
 

Although this one was handled mostly by the Volunteers from the
Orange County Chapter in Orange, Texas and the Beaumont Chapter
in Beaumont, Texas, there were Red Cross Volunteers and some of the
AmeriCorps Volunteers brought in from other places to help.
 

Except for the ones with me in them, the following pictures were taken
either by me or for me with my camera.
 

Sometimes when we have to do a "Home Visit", we are unable to
get to it by vehicle because of the road being flooded, so, we get
special permission to go in by boat. This is "yours truly" ~ ME ~ going
to do a Home Visit via boat and if you look closely, you will see that
I most assuredly have a "life jacket" on. Although I am not afraid
of going in a boat, this "ole gal" don't know how to swim but will do
whatever is necessary to "get the job done" :)
 

This is part of the Sabine River as we are going in. In the top picture,
you will see a small house to the left in the trees. I was told that this
house is usually about 50 yards from the river bank. In the bottom one,
I was told that it is usually about 25 to 30 yards from the river.
 

There are 2 more pages of pictures relating to this particular Disaster.
At the bottom of this page, after the following usual information about
them being copyrighted and all, you will find how to get to the next ones.
 

Please remember that all information and pictures on these pages
are protected under the copyright laws of the United States.
They cannot and may not be used or altered for use on any
other site without permission from the owner.
© Bertha Rudisill Desormeaux
January 19, 2000
 

If at any time, while you are visiting my Red Cross Disaster pages
and you see a picture of your "home or property", I will remove it.
But I will only do so after you have confirmed it to my satisfaction.

To view more pictures of the damage from the S E TEXAS 2/99 Flood
Click below on "Next Page".
 

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