GRETNA, La. — After severe weather and tornados ripped through many parts of the Westbank, residents were out Thursday morning assessing damage in the daylight.
There weren’t many areas untouched by Wednesday night’s storms. Some neighborhoods and businesses were left with torn apart roofs, trees uprooted and power poles split in half. Other areas were nothing but rubble.
Many streets were blocked off as trees, power lines and debris were laying in the road, unsafe for people to drive through. The Church of God on Whitney Avenue in Gretna was destroyed. A pipe burst, leaving water spewing for hours and flooding the parking lot. Parts of the insulation of the building and materials in which the building was made of, were exposed and wrapped in power lines.
Residents in Jefferson Parish and Orleans Parish said the twister moved in and out of their area within minutes, barely leaving time to take cover once they noticed it was moving towards them. Some in Harvey said by the time they found a safe place to hide out, the twister had already moved on to the next neighborhood.
Betty and Joe Totora came outside after the storm to a pole on the corner of their roof, thankful it didn’t fall in the middle of their home or blow up. They say they heard the loud vacuum of the tornado, but not the pole falling.
"The noise was everywhere," Betty Totora said. "It was over with so quickly, you didn't even have time to think."
The Totoras said, in some ways, the tornado was even scarier than a hurricane, with less time to prepare and less experience with this type of severe weather in Louisiana, where have lived for decades. While their street was uprooted in the storm, the couple said they are happy everyone is safe and that they are thankful for crews working diligently.
By 8:30 on Thursday morning, DOTD crews were out in Algiers assessing damage and many power lines were being put back up throughout the Westbank. While they were already out early Thursday morning, DOTD tells us it’ll take at least a few days to get through all the damage.