Another entry from Randy Smith's tales of recovery from Hurricane Katrina on his course, Riverlands Golf and Country Club in LaPlace, La.
Thursday, Sept. 1 (Three days after landfall)
With all of the greens cleared off, I send two of my workers out to clear the tee boxes, while the other crew member starts cutting the greens after we raise our height of cut to .155. We have to lift the reels in a few damaged areas, but really had no problems.
Today my job is to get into the clubhouse and see what needs to be done. Since that building had no real damages, the only thing I can do is check the coolers and pull out drinks for my crew. I will have to get with one of my board members to see what we will be doing with the food that is in those coolers. I see that the power company is working hard at getting things fixed, but we have yet to see them at the club. We decide to donate all but one freezer of food to the police department again. The contents of the last freezer we take to my house to store in my large freezer for when we open the club back up.
My crew goes to my house for lunch while I continue to work with the food issues at the club. I ended up going home around 1 p.m. for a quick bite to eat and get the biggest, best surprise ever -- my wife home from work. It was so good to see that she was safe and to hug her, but then reality kicked in when she told me that she had only two hours off to pick up more clothes and then had to head back to the hospital. I could not stay very long anyway, even though I wanted to. I kissed her goodbye, told her to be careful and sadly departed for work. We managed to clear off the tees and get the greens cut, as well as moving trees off the cart paths and call it a day.
At about 3 p.m., it began to rain very hard. Within one hour, we had received over four inches of rain and the streets were completely flooded. There were actually more homes in our little town that were flooded by this rain in that one hour than in the hurricane. The only good thing that came of this was that my wife was trapped at home due to the high water levels. She did manage to get out about one hour later, though. I did not know then that I would not see her again until the following Monday evening.
That evening we all enjoy the comforts of home. I insist that my guest use up my food in order to save their food for later when they return to their homes where they still did not have power. We get cable back on this day and get to see a much better picture of the destruction. Sleeping that night was not as easy as before we knew what had actually happened to our little part of the world. There will be many similar nights to follow.
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