LITERARY LAS VEGAS

Advertisement

Cathy C. Post grew up in Lake Charles, La., where she worked as a teacher and legal secretary. In Santa Fe, N.M., Post worked as an administrative assistant at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

When Post, now a Las Vegas resident, retired, she took up the task of researching her family history and the history of Hurricane Audrey, a 145 mile-per-hour Category 4 storm that decimated the Louisiana coast in 1957.

Excerpt from "Hurricane Audrey: The Deadly Storm of 1957"

Many families who sought refuge could see the courthouse through the trees, but the gulf water eventually became too deep for them to approach. They were so close, but not close enough. Adrift in the storm surge, they were pushed by the wind and waves past the building, onward through the small neighborhood, and out into the waters of the marsh north of town.

Clara Broussard warned her children to stay away from the windows, but Mary Ann already stood with a throng of people watching the water below. Homes began to wash off their foundations and float past the courthouse. People screamed in horror watching as victims clung to boards in the rough surf but quickly lost their grip, sinking beneath the waves, which were now about ten feet tall. The lucky few who managed to swim to trees around the building crawled as high as they could in the branches. One man with his dog in tow found a safe berth in a sturdy oak tree.