Sherryl Varns and David Maggs shared a bucket of melting banana pudding ice cream in front of a boutique in Ponchatoula Monday as the remains of the business’s metal room hung over in front of them.
When Hurricane Ida tore through this southern Tangipahoa Parish town famous for its antiques district, the heavy, swirling winds peeled off the metal room of the old brick building housing the store and a next door art gallery.
The high winds also knocked down trees that took out a nearby ice cream shop’s backup generator, so the owner gave some away before it melted.
“At least we got free ice cream,” said Varns, 65, who lives next to the downtown district.
Maggs said he had just finished sweeping out two inches of water from inside his wife’s boutique, Mystically Chic. The destroyed roof had let rainwater in.
The corrugated metal roofing hung down from the two-story building to the street level and was wrapped around a power line and splayed out along the shoulder on Pine Street, the town’s main boulevard that is also La. 22. A rooftop air-conditioning unit rested in road.
The high winds had also ripped off the roof of a nearby bar, Stray Cats, and wrapped it around downed power lines.
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“Like I told my wife, everything’s alright as long as no lives were lost. I don’t (care) about the rest,’ Maggs said.
Tangipahoa Parish officials worked Monday to assess the extent of the damage. Reports of power lines down and trees over roads and houses were numerous. Snapped trees, down lines and some housing flooding were apparent all around Ponchatoula.
East of the town, I-12 eastbound was down to one lane in spots due to downed trees Monday morning.
Parish President Robby Miller said there had been some flooding but only a few reports of water in houses so far, though he acknowledged that officials were still trying to figure out the scope of the damage.
Social media accounts for the parish government kept up a stream of reliable information for panicked residents: 9-1-1 lines were down in the area; treat all downed power lines as active; stay off the road so first responders can reach people in need quickly.
Ponchatoula Fire Chief Stormy Joiner said his firefighters spent the morning trying to clear roads and get to calls of people who are trapped but also said he didn’t have a clear understanding how much flooding may or may not have happened.
Firefighters haven’t been able to get to some the lowest areas where flooding might have occurred because of roads blocked with trees.
The fire chief said he had to cut his way out of his own home to get back to the fire station after firefighters ended rescues Sunday evening once winds exceeded 50 mph.
Councilwoman Kim Coates, who serves District 10 in Tangipahoa Parish, described the destruction near her west Ponchatoula home Monday after assessing damages throughout the morning.
In the heavily wooded area near her house, it took about 40 people several to clear roughly half a mile of roadway covered in downed trees.
"It looks like a twister came through," she said. "It was tree after tree after tree after tree just laid across the road. When you look into the woods the tops of the trees are...gone."
She wasn't surprised with the aftermath; she had witnessed the height of the storm overnight as the wind brutalized her home.
"You could kind of hear the gusts coming, trees just popping, just cracking," she said. "We’d go out on the porch every once in a while and the trees were just going sideways."
High water was apparent on La. 22 east of Ponchatoula at a river crossing. Joiner said he has seen water higher in spots that he had ever seen before.
Joiner said firefighters have called in earth-moving and other kinds of equipment to remove some of the largest trees.
In nearby Hammond, Lacy Landrum, director of administration for the city, said early Monday it was difficult to quantify the severity of the storm's impact.
"We really have no idea the scope of damage yet because we’re cutting our way out of every location," she said. "There’s trees down everywhere, powerlines. We know some homes took floodwater. It’s not good. There’s no way out of most of the neighborhoods right now."
Back on Pine in the antique district, Mandy and Josh Poche, owners of Follow Your Art, the gallery next door to Mystically Chic, were still assessing the damage to their business.
The Poches said they stayed in the business overnight to protect their art and had to remove and stack up their paintings once rain started flowing into the store from the damaged roof, which came off shortly before midnight Sunday.
Mandy Poche said the roof coming off sounded like a series of car crashes as the wind howled through town.
The rough night left the Poches undeterred.
“We’re going to be putting a roof on and going to have our shop open and we’re going to sell some art,” Josh Poche said.