LAFITTE, La. — For many, life is on hold in Lafitte, Louisiana as this Jefferson Parish community struggles to rebuild.
Strong winds and high water from Hurricane Ida devastated the area.
The annual House of Horrors at the Lafitte Fire Station is one of the many casualties of the storm here.
“There’s a lot of damage out here,” Fire Chief Linton Duet said. “A lot of problems we have. It’s going to take some time to get in shape.”
Chief Duet says he was hoping to bring back the spooktacular along Bayou Barataria after the pandemic caused them to cancel last year’s event.
But just about everything volunteers used to stage the haunted house was destroyed.
“A lot of our mannequins and our different types of lights, smoke machines, everything was inundated with water,” Duet said.
Duet lost his own house and pickup truck in the storm.
The fire department also sustained major damage.
"Repairing three of our fire stations as we speak that have been damaged by the hurricane. We’re trying to do as much work as we can ourselves.”
He also lost some firefighters.
“A lot of our guys, the volunteers just packed up and left, basically getting beat up with this storm. I lost a couple of my paid employees because of the situation the storm caused on their property.”
Chief Duet says folks in Lafitte don’t need to go to a haunted house to be frightened because what they see on a daily basis, now two months after Ida hit is scary enough.
“Basically, total destruction of people’s property. Going through all of this is horrifying.”
The chief admits the haunted house which has become a Halloween tradition for families across the New Orleans metro area, now faces an uncertain future.
“We really want to try to do it again. It’s all up to what we lost in the storm.”
Chief Duet says people from Lafitte are resilient and they will rebuild bigger and better and so will his fire department.