Donna Price

Wednesday morning, Gailla Ladd and her husband Zale were among two of the more than 60 residents at a temporary shelter for flood victims set up in the gym at Trinity Baptist Church in Lake Charles. Monday’s torrential rains brought the water up chest deep in the couple’s home, which they had been renting for 12 years.

“We were up in the loft to stay out of the water. Our landlord said we had to get out because we couldn’t stay there. He said the home was gone.”

The couple, along with their Chihuahua, Fifi, and an elderly poodle they rescued as they were leaving their home, are sleeping on cots in the gym under Red Cross blankets.

The couple plans to remain at the shelter until June 1, when they will be able to move in with a relative in Rayne.

Ladd said she could use some clothes. And all their electronics are gone.

“My husband had an adjustable bed that helped him with his health problems. It’s gone,” she said.

But Ladd is thankful for this place to stay, and is grateful for what she does have, she said.

“I always say, ‘Don’t complain.’ Because there’s always somebody that’s got less than you,” she said.

Ladd, who is originally from Indiana, said when she first came to the area, weather events were not as severe as they are now.

“If I had a million dollars, I would open up four or five shelters like this and leave them open all the time for people in situations like we’re in now,” she said.

Gailla Ladd talks to her Chihuahua, FiFi, Wednesday morning at a shelter for flood victims set up in the Trinity Baptist Church gym in Lake Charles.  The home where Ladd lived with her husband, Zale, was flooded Monday.

Donna Price