Story
Five years after Laura: what we learned about the second month
The tarps go on in week one. The loneliness sets in around week six. Here's how our check-in calls changed.
Simone Guidry
Southwest Louisiana · since Hurricane Laura
Storm hit your house? Tell us and a crew will come.
Roof tarps, muck-outs, downed trees and supplies, for homeowners and renters in five parishes. A crew lead calls you back within two days, usually sooner.
- Free. We never charge and we don't work for insurers.
- Renters qualify, and so do mobile homes
- Spanish and Vietnamese on the help line
- No church membership or ID asked for
No signal for forms? (555) 018-7700
After you ask
What happens next
Step 1: A crew lead calls
Within two days. They'll ask about the roof, the water line on the walls and who lives in the house.
Step 2: Someone comes to look
An assessor walks the house with you, takes photos for your insurance claim and writes up the job.
Step 3: A crew does the work
Usually a Saturday. Tarps go on in a morning. A full muck-out takes a crew of ten about a day.
Step 4: We check back
Two weeks later someone calls to ask what else you need, and points you to rebuild help.
Since August 2020
Six storms, one freeze, a lot of Saturdays
2,9141
roofs tarped across five parishes
1,186
houses mucked out after floods
41,300
volunteer hours, logged at the warehouse door
$0
charged to anyone, ever
- 1Laura and Delta account for 2,240 of them.
Counted from crew sign-in sheets and job tickets, through September 2026.
Blue Roof Saturdays
Most people need a tarp before anything else
A good tarp, battened down properly, keeps rain off the drywall for six months while the insurance and the contractors catch up. Our crews have put up nearly three thousand of them.
Every crew has a trained roof lead, harnesses and a ground team. Nobody goes up who doesn't want to.
- Crews leave the warehouse at 7:30 AM Saturdays
- We supply the tarps, lumber, screws and lunch
- Homeowners don't need to be home, but it helps
Partners
Who we work beside
We are one piece of the response. When a storm comes, these are the people on the same group text.
- Calcasieu Parish OEMEmergency management
Shares damage maps so crews go where it's worst first.
- St. Margaret's HallStaging site
Lends us a parking lot and a kitchen during every response.
- BayouBuildersGuildRebuild partner
Takes over once the tarp is on and the walls are dry.
- Gulf Coast Legal LineInsurance help
Free advice for anyone fighting a claim or a contractor.
- Moss Bluff BaptistBunkhouse
Sleeps forty visiting volunteers on cots in the fellowship hall.