As Delta lumbers north, Lafayette Parish may be on the ‘dirty side’ of the hurricane.
As Delta moved steadily, and ominously, toward the Louisiana coast Friday morning, residents of
According to a late-morning advisory from the National Hurricane Center, Delta could cut a northeasterly path once it comes inland, with the eye passing to the west of Lafayette.
That would put the city of 120,000 people on the more dangerous right side — sometimes called “the dirty side” of the hurricane. And even though Lafayette Parish has been under voluntary evacuation since midweek, many residents have chosen to ride it out.
There was a line out the door Friday morning at Rickey Meche’s Donut King near the center of town. At a Super 1 grocery store along the evacuation route, families walked out with cases of bottled water on Thursday afternoon. Plywood and composite boards were on display near the grocery store entrance, waiting to be nailed over the automatic doors.
Across the street in a lot next to a city-owned community center, half a dozen people filed into an ad hoc intake center operated by local housing advocates. They signed up with case managers who promised them rides on the midmorning caravan to a mega-shelter in Alexandria,about an hour and a half north along the hurricane evacuation route.
Betty Blaine, 57, stooped to coax her two mix-breed terriers — Creek and Angel — to drink from a yellow water bowl. She and her boyfriend, Troy Daigle, Jr., 56, waited for a squat paratransit bus to take them away.
The pair lived together in Lake Charles in a senior living high-rise called the Chateau Du Lac, which was shredded by Hurricane Laura in late August. After decamping to a Marriott in New Orleans, Ms. Blaine and Mr. Daigle packed west to Acadia Parish, between Lafayette and their native Lake Charles, to stay in a friend’s camper.