WALKER, La.
Chuck and Karen Craft are among the thousands of Louisiana residents dragging furniture, appliances and other belongings out of flood-ravaged homes.
Married more than 35 years, the Crafts live outside Walker, a small town near Baton Rouge. Chuck Craft said they thanked God that their family survived and had “a good, long cry” about their irreparable home. Now, they’re trying to salvage photos of their four children and 16 grandchildren.
“I guess God wanted me to de-clutter,” Chuck Craft, 57, joked Sunday. “I was too pig-headed to do it.”
Outside Walker, the rural Baptist church the Crafts attend has become an oasis for flood victims.
As waters rose amid torrential rains earlier this month, National Guard rescue crews dropped people off at South Walker Baptist Church because it sits on a ridge of relatively high ground in Livingston Parish near Baton Rouge. Even as flooding has receded in recent days, the church — like many other places across hard-hit south Louisiana — has continued providing sustenance for the body and soul.
It sheltered 96 people in the days after the storm, and Pastor Mark Carroll said the sanctuary is still a dormitory for more than 20 who lost their homes, including a man who had been living in his car until Saturday. It is also housing volunteers who have come to help people rebuild.
With a congregation of about 100 and with help from the community, the church is offering hot meals, running a pantry stocked by donations from around the U.S. and conducting prayer services. Carroll said the church had been planning a revival in about a month, but he believes the storm recovery is making that happen now as people build relationships with each other through God.
“It’s been this entire community,” Carroll said by phone Sunday. “We couldn’t have done anything without everyone, and I mean just about everyone, pitching in.”
The Baton Rouge area got thunderstorms with at least 2 to 3 inches of rain Sunday, the National Weather Service said.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Sunday that people around the U.S. are just starting to pay attention to the extent of flooding that killed at least 13 people in Louisiana.
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