Hurricane Rita drove us far from home

Judy Johnson TPA President
Lagniappe
The Hometown Press

Three weeks ago I was in a shelter in Winnie helping Hurricane Katrina victims who fled Louisiana.

I never thought I’d be next.

Buddy and I were forced to evacuate our own home Sept. 22 as Hurricane Rita bore down on Southeast Texas. Our lagniappe had run out.

The weathermen predicted landfall in the upper Texas coast but could not be precise on where the massive hurricane would make landfall. We left home not knowing what would happen or what we’d be coming home to.

Winnie is in Chambers County only 15 miles from the Texas Gulf Coast. We’ve weathered storms before but Rita was predicted to be the next big one so we packed what we could and got into our car and headed north.

It was slow going. The traffic was horrendous as we inched along with thousands and thousands of other cars just like us fleeing Rita. The weather was extremely hot and the sun was beaming down with no hint of what was to come.

It took us 13 hours before reaching a hotel in Tyler. We got one of the only available rooms and were surprised to learn that most of the other guests were still there from Katrina.

These were the same faces that I had helped only weeks before in my town — families with young children bored and tired and just ready to go home.

Other guests I would see in the hotel halls were Rita victims. One couple fled Port Arthur with their 1-week-old baby. The stories were heartbreaking.

Eventually we got in touch with a friend also in Tyler and were able to move in with her temporarily.

I kept in touch with Mike Hodges and other TPA staff members after the storm.

I also am so appreciative of every TPA member who tried to contact me and who sent messages of hope after the storm. It meant so much to us to hear friendly voices from the newspapering community.

As of Oct. 3, we finally heard that the power was expected to return the next day in Winnie and we planned to return home.

But the return will be a hard one. A handful of other publishers in Southeast Texas also were forced to suspend publication, even dailies in Beaumont, Orange and Port Arthur couldn’t print after Rita.

In Winnie we’ve lost at least three weeks worth of business and our advertisers and readers are scattered across Texas and Southwest Louisiana. When you only publish 52 issues a year, losing three of those is a lot.

But after seeing the other victims of Rita and Katrina in the shelter and the hotel, I know that I am blessed. Losing electricity and a little business is a minor inconvenience compared to what could have been.

Rita dealt the newspapers of Southeast Texas a strong blow but I have faith that we’ll get through this disaster as a community.

It will take a lot of work but the newspapers eventually will come back and will continue serving our communities like we always have. And our lagniappe will return once again.