Hurricane Francine slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast on Wednesday, causing no fatalities but significant damage especially in communities that are still recovering from previous hurricanes.
More than 100,000 homes and businesses across the U.S. state of Louisiana were without power on Friday.
In Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, volunteers are giving out food and water as a large number of residents in the county suffer power outages for two days, which has spoiled contents of their refrigerators as temperatures creep towards 32 degrees Celsius with 70 percent humidity.
Volunteers from the Bayou Blue Assembly spent Friday handing out food, water, and hygiene products to over 600 people.
"We in two hours have served 406 cars - that's not including how many families were in each car," said Michelle Guidry, a Children's Pastor from Bayou Blue Assembly.
Volunteers Convoy of Hope - a non-profit humanitarian organization- are also loading supplies, including food and water, into cars.
"We were heavy on food and water this time. Had there been more damage, we would have chosen more cleaning supplies, more tarps and that sort of thing. So that's kind of how we gauge it based on how much damage there is," said Mark Epps, the Response Manager of Convoy of Hope.
Mark says the organization gets busier by the year as storms become more frequent and more intense.
Many of the residents here in Terrebonne Parish still vividly remember Hurricane Ida from three years ago, when storm surges left 60 percent of the homes in this community unlivable.
"Some are just now, three years later, getting into their homes, getting their roofs fixed, getting those things done, working overtime, doing second jobs, doing everything they could do to try to fix their stuff. And so here another hurricane comes in," said Pastor Patrick Thompson from Bayou Blue Assembly.
Many households hit by the previous hurricane did not have insurance, yet those who did hardly got enough money to rebuild their houses. Moreover, they are starting to feel the impacts of the new hurricane.
Felicia Davenport and her husband were still in the process of repairing damage from Ida when Francine hit, ripping off part of their roof and destroying their ceiling.
"We were still repairing the floors and stuff like that. We're in a rental house, we don't even have rental insurance. [With] the last hurricane Ida we got the 500 dollars, that's everybody got and that was it," said Felicia Davenport
Though the storm has weakened to a post-tropical cyclone on late Thursday afternoon, according to the U.S. National Weather Service, many in this community still feel like they have their heads just above water.
Hurricane Francine wreaks havoc in Louisiana, with residents still reeling from impacts of previous ones
Hurricane Francine wreaks havoc in Louisiana, with residents still reeling from impacts of previous ones
