![]() ![]() You don’t have to be a scientist or a genius to see that.”Īs the planet warms and people continue to build homes and businesses in high-risk areas, disasters have become more destructive, more frequent, and more costly. “In the past 25 years, Lake Charles had been through 11 federally declared disasters five of those occurred just in the past year. ![]() “There is a lot of PTSD in this community from what we have gone through,” Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter told BuzzFeed News. And lingering heaps of debris render the city vulnerable to more flooding from future rains and storms. The crushing housing crisis has left families like Boudreaux's living in unsafe conditions in their broken, mold-infested homes or in tents. People are exhausted, stressed, and hurting, and many cannot afford to change their circumstances. “You are constantly getting hit with these natural disasters, and sometimes it feels like you’re living in Revelations.”Īnd the city is close to its breaking point. ![]() “Right when you think you’re catching your breath, boom,” Boudreaux told BuzzFeed News. ![]() Now, as the 2021 hurricane season gets underway, Boudreaux’s three-bedroom home - still askew on its foundation, with holes in its roof - is one of thousands in Lake Charles still waiting for a recovery that never happened. In May, historic rains flooded the area with upwards of 19 inches of water in a single day. These were followed by a brutal ice storm that froze pipes and wrecked houses in February of this year. Then, in October, Hurricane Delta rammed into Lake Charles as a Category 2 storm. With its 150-mile-per-hour sustained winds, Laura was the worst storm to hit the state in a century. But Boudreaux’s grief didn’t end there: It took her family another seven months to finally bury her father, as one disaster after another pummeled the riverbank city where she grew up. The 72-year-old died alone after medics rushed him from a hospital to nursing homes, trying to find a facility that still had power after Hurricane Laura hit. “Identifying and mitigating the CO source is critical in preventing other poisoning cases.Bridget Boudreaux didn’t know she was saying goodbye to her father last August when an ambulance took him away from her sweltering, hurricane-battered home near Lake Charles, Louisiana. “Appropriate and prompt diagnostic testing and treatment are crucial to reduce morbidity and prevent mortality from CO poisoning,” the CDC said in the health advisory. Symptoms with no fever with symptoms, a history of exposure or multiple people with similar complaints are red flags for carbon monoxide exposure.īabies, pregnant women, the elderly and people with chronic conditions, such as anemia, respiratory illness or heart disease are most at risk for CO poisoning, the agency said. They can include headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, weakness, chest pain and altered mental status. The agency is advising doctors in the hurricane zone to pay attention to symptoms that could be related to CO poisoning. “If used or placed improperly, these sources can lead to CO (carbon monoxide) buildup inside buildings, garages, or campers and poison the people and animals inside," the CDC said. The storm has knocked out power to thousands of homes and businesses and people could turn to “alternate power sources such as gasoline generators and may use propane or charcoal grills for cooking,” the CDC said. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a Health Alert Network advisory Thursday warning of the risks of carbon monoxide poisoning in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura, which slammed into the Louisiana coast early Thursday as a powerful Category 4 storm. ![]()
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