Dulac native returns home to total destruction after Ida's fury

Candace Pellegrin, who was living with her mother in Dulac, left with eight other families to ride out Hurricane Ida in Conroe, TX. After spending three nights in a hotel, they traveled to a family home in Dickinson, TX, where they stayed for a month.

Candace has been working as a receptionist for Catholic Charities Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux for close to five years. Her mother Faye Pellegrin has been the secretary for Holy Family Church parish in Grand Caillou, where they are parishioners, since 1993.

Just a few days after the storm passed, Candace says her brother and her 19-year-old son drove to Dulac and took pictures of the damage, so she had kind of mentally prepared herself before coming back that nothing would ever be the same when they got home.
“I remember taking the Highway 311 exit and seeing all the blue tarps on top of roofs and all of the debris on the sides of the road.

Once we turned on Grand Caillou Road heading to Dulac, it looked like a bomb blew up everything. As we drove further down heading toward our home, all you could see were buildings and homes just gone. It was total devastation!”
Candace’s childhood home was completely destroyed by Hurricane Ida’s powerful winds. “All that's left is debris all over the yard,” she says. “I never thought in my 42 years of life on earth that I would come back to no home. It was a hard pill to swallow when we turned in the driveway at my house to see all of our belongings all over the yard. Some of our things we still haven't found until this day, as we are still cleaning up debris. When we left, we only took four changes of clothes and some pictures and important papers. I thought for sure the roof of the shed would blow off due to high winds, but I did not think we would come home to everything gone.”


Candace and her mother stayed with a family friend for about two weeks after they got back to Dulac, and since then have been living at Candace’s grandmother’s house. Candace and her son are currently looking to purchase a new mobile home.

Candace says she has to give a huge shout out to her co-workers at Catholic Charities. “They are awesome! Once I got back home they came to me with open arms. They kept asking me what we needed. At the time, it was a bit overwhelming and all I could answer is ‘I don't know.’ They gave us cleaning supplies and things we needed to help with the recovery process of cleaning our home, our belongings and our yard.”

One thing Candace says she noticed since the hurricane is that people are really helping each other through this difficult time and just trying to survive and rebuild their lives.

Candace had some background experience doing case work after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike. So when she was asked by Very Rev. Simon Peter Engurait, V.G., interim executive director for Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, if she would like to be part of a team helping with disaster recovery, she told him to put her "where ever you need me to be."

She was part of the team who worked in the Parish Recovery Assistance Centers listening to storm victims’ stories, documenting their damages and assisting them in registering for federal and state programs. She spent two weeks in Dulac, one week in Pointe-Aux-Chenes and one week in Montegut.

“I truly felt like that is where I needed to be because I could relate to each person who came to fill out an intake form,” says Candace.