Some of my earliest memories are of Hurricane Betsy. Hurricane Gustav gave Dad the opportunity to reflect back on Betsy. The pictures are from various sites on the web. The last two are pictures of a newborn Douglas taken in front of our boarded up house.
It’s Gustav
So why am I writing about Betsy, a hurricane that happened forty years ago. Well, I’m gonna tell you why. As Mr. Gustav indicated that he would like to pay us a visit your mother made the statement that she never again wanted to experience a hurricane in a house that was being decimated. Of course she was talking about Betsy. So we find ourselves heading to Baton Rouge to ride-out Gustav in a friend’s apartment. Sister Mary John had been sick and had not been able to stay in her apartment for over a month and was kind enough to think about us. Did I mention that parents love hurricanes? Children, no matter where they are, always check-in and keep in touch with their parents during a storm. Of course our children do this all the time anyway.
So we are on our way to Baton Rouge and two seconds after your mom tells me that Mary doesn’t remember anything abut Betsy, the cell phone rings and it’s Mel checking in. Mel was five during Betsy and the first thing your mothers asks him is….”Do you remember anything about Betsy?” From the conversation I knew he remembered. So I yell out, ask him if he remembers the snake and your mom says, “I’ll ask him that later.” Over the phone I hear, “Of course I remember the snake, Dad was my hero.” As I said before, parents love hurricanes.
We knew Betsy was going to be bad. Mom was pregnant with Doug and been ordered to complete bed rest for about three weeks and was due any minute. In fact, Dr. Crawley told her after the storm that he was so sure she was gong to deliver during the storm, he tried to get to the hospital, fallen trees and power lines prevented him so he called the hospital and told them that if a Mrs. Netzhammer came in it definitely was not a false alarm.
I did my usual hurricane prep—picked up loose items in the yard. Put some tape on the windows, and the best thing I did was pick up granny and bring her to stay with us, and to entertain you kids, during the storm. We had an idea to make the night more exciting and fun for you. We put mattresses in the hall that ran from the living room to the bathroom and you and granny had a lot of laughs before you finally feel asleep.
Not too long after you guys were asleep we started hearing “pings” on the front windows.
After a while, I remembered that they were doing roof work on the school across the street and that the sounds on the windows were probably loose pea gravel they used on roofs at that time. Minutes later, there was a blast, almost like a small explosion, in the living room. Both windows were shattered and pressure, vacuum or whatever, burst open the door to the hall and glass went over your heads all the way to the bathroom. There were actually chards of glass stuck into the wall of the bathroom.. Of course the door to the hall was swinging back and forth and wind and rain was pouring down the hall. We had two swinging doors to the kitchen and they were also swinging open and shut with the wind. We tied the knobs on the kitchen doors with an extension cord and since the frame on the hall door was damaged I ventured out in the storm, two steps, to the utility room to get a hammer and nails. Doug, this is where you come into the picture. To keep the door closed while I got the hammer and nails I put you and your mother (you provided the needed extra weight) against the door to keep it shut while I nailed it to the frame. We cleaned-up the mess in the hall and for some unexplained reason, probably Granny’s influence, you kids went back to sleep. Mom and I went to bedroom and sat on the innersprings—the mattress was in the hall—and we prayed that we would get through the night. Our feet were still on the floor when we laid back and closed our eyes for a few moments. When we woke-up it was daylight, There was no sound of wind or rain. I was thinking that this must be the calm you experience when the eye passes and the winds come from the other side.. I walked outside and I knew that Betsy was gone and we were safe. There must be hundreds of references in the Bible about the night as bad and day, dawn as good. Dark night, beautiful day. Waking up from that trechious night in the dawn of a beautiful day truly put that into perspective.
Soon, everyone was up. Time to survey the damage and realize how lucky we were. The living/dining room looked as if a bomb had gone off in it. Glass everywhere, furniture turned over, carpets soaked and water pouring in from a hole in the ceiling. On one piece of furniture stood Mary holding baby Jesus, with Joseph. They were pieces from our crèche which we still have today. They were made of pottery and Joseph had a foot defect from the day we bought the set. It made it hard for him to stand. But on this morn there was Joseph standing next to Mary in a room where everything else was topsy tursy. Granny came into the room, saw the destruction then saw Joseph and Mary standing and declared it a miracle. Over and over again she declared it a miracle.
I started pulling up the carpet in the living room. It was depressing for many reasons, but the fact that the rain was pouring in as if there was a funnel from the roof to the living room. Two guys show up at our door. They say they are Tulane students, worked as roofers during the summer. They say they noticed there was a lot of roofing materials at the school and said they could get some rolls of tarpaper from the school and tack in on our roof so the rain couldn’t get in. I thought the school wouldn’t mind or miss the tarpaper so I told the guys to do it. Soon there was the sound of hammering on the roof and unfortunately the sound of someone falling off the roof. One of the guys rolled off the roof onto the ground. I rushed out to see if he was injured, but he said he was fine and climbed back up. They soon finished, no more water coming in the house and when I asked how much I owed them, they said $15. Being a generous fellow I gave them $16 so each would get $8. Another blessing!
But the days ahead were no blessing. We had no power—it took 17 days to get it—and besides the heat, there were the shattered windows, and even though they were covered by plywood, bugs and mosquitoes came in the house. Obviously, it was especially hard for mom and Doug but we did our best to cope.
Here come the snake story. One night after dinner Mel went out to play on the rolled up carpet on the carport. Within minutes he rushed back in, we were still at the dinner table, he was trembling, not crying, but unable to speak. Finally he uttered words that sounded like rattle snake.
I ran out the door and there it was. A small rattle snake, probably under two feet long, with a baby rattle making a muffled sound. Fortunately, we always had weapons lying around the carport, so I picked-up a rake and a baseball bat as my weapons of choice. I must confess that my memory is not so much a heroic event as me clowning and dancing around trying to hold down the snake with a rake so I could smash his head with the bat. After a few attempts where the snake slithered out from under the rake I finally was able to hold him down and do the deed with the bat.
I wonder as I write this, if, at this time in my life if I could kill a creature, even a poisonous snake.
The snake was only the beginning of some hard times. The heat, lack of power, bugs in the house and hormones were taking their toll on your mother. One day our friend Sally Omernick came over and mom started crying and Sally said she wanted us to move in with them and wouldn’t take no for an answer. So we made the move. We passed the next week or so with the Omernicks and finally the day came—September 24.
Delivery went well. My first view of Baby Man, later to be known as Random man, was a baby with red hair and a completely purple body. They had spilled a bottle of the purple medicine they put on the navel. They quickly let me know that he would be cleaned-up in a few minutes. Dr. Crawley and several other doctors had purchased a building and made it a delivery hospital. It was previously a meat market, and in those days siblings were not allowed to go see the baby in the nursery. But there was a compassionate nurse that told us to go around to the back of the building and she held the baby in the window for all to see-and somewhere we have a picture of three kids looking in a window at their new brother.
Mom and Dad hold little Dougie just back from his baptism:
This is Doug being held by his godparents Tom and Bernie Pool. Notice the house.
It snowed in New Orleans on Thursday for about 5 hours. It was AMAZINGly beautiful. It was really a special day. It was finals week for me, and Thursday was the one day I had nothing to do! So I really got to enjoy it. Also, I got to enjoy it with my wonderful new boyfriend, Chris :)
I did my usual hurricane prep—picked up loose items in the yard. Put some tape on the windows, and the best thing I did was pick up granny and bring her to stay with us, and to entertain you kids, during the storm. We had an idea to make the night more exciting and fun for you. We put mattresses in the hall that ran from the living room to the bathroom and you and granny had a lot of laughs before you finally feel asleep.
I started pulling up the carpet in the living room. It was depressing for many reasons, but the fact that the rain was pouring in as if there was a funnel from the roof to the living room. Two guys show up at our door. They say they are Tulane students, worked as roofers during the summer. They say they noticed there was a lot of roofing materials at the school and said they could get some rolls of tarpaper from the school and tack in on our roof so the rain couldn’t get in. I thought the school wouldn’t mind or miss the tarpaper so I told the guys to do it. Soon there was the sound of hammering on the roof and unfortunately the sound of someone falling off the roof. One of the guys rolled off the roof onto the ground. I rushed out to see if he was injured, but he said he was fine and climbed back up. They soon finished, no more water coming in the house and when I asked how much I owed them, they said $15. Being a generous fellow I gave them $16 so each would get $8. Another blessing!
Our dear friends, Pete from Fernie and Will from San Diego were our witnesses, though everyone present was a witness to an incredible event.
