It's been five months. Five months ago at this time if you lived in South Louisiana you were either hunkered down or hiding from Hurricane Laura. The category 4 storm roared ashore in Cameron Parish and to this day there are still a lot of people hurting.

It didn't help that just a few weeks later Hurricane Delta hit the coast at the almost exact same spot bringing an even wider swath of storm destruction to our state.

Governor John Bel Edwards was in Lake Charles yesterday, the almost epicenter of both landfalling storms. Governor Edwards was there to remind storm-affected residents that they have not been forgotten. However, based on the sometimes sluggish federal response some people find that hard to believe.

The Governor in his remarks in Lake Charles announced that he is asking President Biden and Congress to approve three billion dollars in federal assistance. Edwards said he made a similar request to President Trump but the Trump administration did not act on the request.

One of the biggest needs in Southwest Louisiana is housing. It was estimated that some 47,000 homes in 21 different parishes in the state were damaged by Hurricane Laura. Remember Laura was still a hurricane when it reached the I-20 corridor in north Louisiana.

There are still almost 700 evacuees from the storms still sheltered in New Orleans and Lafayette. It is hoped that this federal assistance would provide housing to bring these people back home. And for the people who are living and working around damaged properties, the federal money would be used to fix and repair those homes and revitalize those businesses so the people of the area could return to work and a sense of normalcy.

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