South Lafourche resident knows rebuilding will be a slow process

Sulina Hebert, parishioner of Sacred Heart Church parish in Cut Off, evacuated to her oldest daughter’s house in Alabama for Hurricane Ida and returned to her parent’s house in Raceland on Wednesday after the hurricane.

When she walked into the house that she’s lived in for the past 26 years on Thursday, she says she just stood in the doorway and cried.
She had been in touch with some of her neighbors who sent her pictures of the outside, so she knew there were some missing shingles and that the shed was gone, but she thought she was going to be okay. Then her youngest daughter’s boyfriend went to the house on Tuesday and took pictures of the inside, but she says pictures did not do it justice at all; and then it rained again and that made things even worse, so she was not at all prepared for the sight that greeted her when she went inside on Thursday.

“It was very overwhelming. It was 15 or 20 minutes before I could even bring myself to take a step,” says Sulina, tearing up again as she recalls that moment. “Ceiling tiles and insulation were falling down … there was water all over the furniture and on the floor … it was a mess.”

Now, a month later, the walls and the floors are both starting to buckle.

When she left before the storm, she did not think she would return to find as much damage as she did. “I was here for (Hurricane) Katrina and we just had roof damage. So I figured I’d come home, fix the roof and just move on. And I left everything at school, I didn’t bring anything home … and still, right now I don’t even know what my classroom looks like or what’s left in it.”

Sulina teaches study skills at South Lafourche High School in Galliano. Because of the damage to the school, it is in Tier III of the Lafourche Parish School District’s reopening schedule, and is slated for reopening in mid-October.

She says it’s been a slow process having to do everything on her own because all of her friends and neighbors are in the same place as she is … they all have their own problems to deal with. Her youngest daughter came home from Lafayette where she attends college on the Sunday after the storm and helped her clear out things that were damaged from the water, clean up some and go through her things. Her 18-year-old son who wishes he could be there to help her through this, joined the Army two weeks before the storm and is in basic training in Fort Wood, Missouri.

She has been coming to the house every day to do whatever she can before she has to go back to work. She has started taking down the trim, the molding and the baseboards.

Sulina’s plans as of now are to gut and rebuild her house, because there are no structural damages that she knows of.

“The hardest part of the whole process,” she says, “was clearing out, going through everything that was damaged and throwing away 26 years of memories.”