Many people and business owners in Lake Charles are trying to wrap their minds around what they're seeing.
"I lost my mind,” hair and beauty supply shop owner Abdull Manea said. “I lost my mind and said everything is gone. It's kind of horrible. Sorry for everyone losing their business and all that."
The winds from Hurricane Laura ripped the front wall off his store. He’s not even sure how to begin cleaning up.
"See if we can't get some wood and try to cover up at least halfway until they do something about it," Manea said.
Things look the same for many other businesses all around the city.
The local NBC affiliate KPLC-TV's broadcast tower collapsed into their studio.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Gray Television, the parent company of KPLC, had evacuated KPLC’s staff more than 12 hours before Hurricane Laura made landfall. No one was in or around the building when the tower fell.
In other areas, Army National Guard members kept watch over businesses that didn’t appear damaged, but are without power and security systems.
Getting to a point of being able to clean up wasn't easy for some.
"Sounded like a tornado was going on the whole night," Mike Guglielmo of Lake Charles said.
Many people who decided to stay still shaken over what they survived.
"It was shaking and rumbling,” Guglielmo said. “The wind blew the windows out. My shingles blew off and the rain started coming through the ceiling."
"The wind it sounded like I was in the middle of an airport with jet engines running you know it was rough.” Christopher Jack of Lake Charles said. “It was rough but we made it through."
Now everyone is starting to pull together to clean up and eventually rebuild.
"I've been on this block since I was young and it touched me a certain kind of way seeing everything we lost you know," Jack said.
