ST. MARTIN PARISH — St. Martinville resident Ashley LeBlanc, a mother of two describes what she felt she returned to her house the next day after a severe storm two weeks ago.
“Depressed, discouraged,” LeBlanc said.
Her son Eli LeBlanc has been watching his mother try to salvage their home.
“Well I was feeling bad for my momma 'cause she just put a lot of money into the house and it been getting messed up because of the storm,” Eli LeBlanc said.
LeBlanc and two of her children, ages 13 and two, have been bouncing from different family members' houses due to the extensive damage to their home.
“My roof, half of my roof was off and the wood, everything that was under that had all came off,” LeBlanc said.
“My ceiling inside, soaking wet. The walls.”
LeBlanc and her family visit their home to speak with me, and there are no lights in their living room.
“I was scared to put the electricity on because it was soaking wet,” LeBlanc said referring to her ceiling fan.
The ceilings in her kitchen cabinet which are now brown from water damage, were once a pure white.
All of her items she is trying to save such as pictures and important items, are now all in boxes on her kitchen table.
“I’m afraid of the mold,” LeBlanc said.
“And not just at night it's during the day. It gets hot really hot. There's no installation.”
She’s worried about what’s to come as more storms are expected in the upcoming days.
“It’s gonna cause my house to shift more,”
LeBlanc said. “Which, it is an old trailer. But you know, I’ve been putting money into it for it to just get blown away.”
LeBlanc has tried to reach out for help with an assessment.
“Everyone is either busy and they’re gonna get to me, or just no one has contacted me back or you know, maybe I’m just not reaching out to the right people,” LeBlanc said.
She previously used her savings to renovate her home after a storm last year.
There is still present damage from severe weather in the past on the ceiling in both her and her son’s bedrooms.
“We had redid the roof and you know I put money into the ceiling, redoing the ceiling,” LeBlanc said.
She feels the DEQ’s clean-up assistance that began today enforced by Governor Jeff Landry after he declared a state of emergency in the parish last week, is not enough to fix the mess she is still left with.
“If you’re like me, you know, I pay my bills,” LeBlanc said.
“And I really don't have anything extra, and a single mom, it's really hard. These things happen unexpectedly and we just don’t have the help.”
As LeBlanc puts on a brave face for her children in the midst of the unkown, there is now a new mantra she’s living by.
“Find hope in the storm," LeBlanc said.
LeBlanc said she has reached out to the American Red Cross and FEMA.
Click here for the link to her GoFundMe.
