HOUMA, La.—Weary evacuees filled rescue shelters, and local officials watched the costly damage mount from Hurricane Ike after its massive storm surge swamped Louisiana's coastline and flooded the bayou communities where much of the state's Native American population lives.
At least two people were reported dead and tens of thousands were forced from their homes as dangerous water levels submerged neighborhoods and closed off highways, forcing people — still reeling from Hurricane Gustav less than two weeks earlier — to flee their homes and businesses yet again.
"We're very tired of these hurricanes. It's just like a repeat of the mud, the water and rebuild and rebuild," said Dena Foret, 41, of Dulac, La., who has spent the last three nights at Houma Junior High School along with nearly two dozen of her friends and family members in the school gymnasium.
Samantha Verdin was at the shelter with her twin 1-year-olds, their father and grandmother.
"The water was not so bad when we left but it was climbing," she said of the family's hasty departure from Dulac, adding that the family just got off the phone with a friend who remained in the area. "We just heard that we have two feet of water in our house and it's still rising," she said.
The women and their families were among many Natives struck by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. They include members of the United Houma Nation, the Pointe-au-Chien tribe, the Isle de Jean Charles Band and the Lafourche Band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation.
Many of those hardest hit lived in Dulac and Montague in Terrebonne Parish and Pointe Aux Chene in Lafourche Parish, which experienced water levels that rose as high as six feet and could be seen in parts as a massive lake. Those buildings that were not elevated were filled with water, and cars could be seen stranded where they were left.
Although Hurricane Ike touched land nearly 200 miles to the west, violent winds — which reached 75 mph — and the relentless surge were blamed for damage to a number of homes and two deaths.
The deaths were reported in Houma where a 52-year-old man was said to have been found in a parking lot after apparently being hurled by the wind into a pole. The other death was of a 16-year-old in Dularge who was found at his some, an apparent drowning victim.
The Courier newspaper of Houma, La., reported [13] the coroner's office as saying 52-year-old Donald Celestine was found on a Houma street with a broken neck after he was apparently thrown by strong winds into a pole or other object.
Meanwhile, Sheriff's Attorney Bill Dodd, a spokesman for the Terrebonne Parish's emergency-response team, told the Houma Courier that the unidentified youth was living in a lower Dularge house that was damaged by Gustav, the Labor Day hurricane that made landfall in Cocodrie.
Dodd said the victim had his foot caught in a broken segment of indoor porch and he may have drowned after falling into the floodwater and could not free himself. Dodd also said 10,000 homes throughout the parish were flooded, although other officials estimated a lower figure. But residents and officials agreed that the floods from Ike eclipsed those from Rita, which followed Hurricane Katrina three years.
"We never saw this kind of flooding from Rita as we have from Ike," said Brenda Dardar Robichaux, principal chief of the Houma Nation, the state's largest tribe. "It has devastated our communities."
At one flooded section of Houma, a fire official from Terrebonne Parish who asked not to be identified said fire fighters and rescue workers were informed that the southern winds that fed the storm surge and resulted in high water levels would continue for another 24 to 48 hours.
"Until we have normal winds," he said, "it will be difficult to get the water out."
[Editor's note: Watch videos on houmatoday.com [14], The Courier newspaper Web site: "Chauvin Flyover [15]," "Ike in Chauvin [16]" and "Ike Saturday [17]."]