PJ Brown is fine...
Hornets' Brown 'blown away' by destruction
Sunday, 10:45 a.m.
By Jimmy Smith
Staff writer
Hornets forward P.J. Brown made it back to Slidell, the community he has called home for much of his professional life the other day.
And he's still having difficulty describing exactly what he saw.
"It looks like someone dropped a bomb; it's unbelievable," Brown said Saturday night from Houston, where he traveled after riding out the storm in Lafayette with friends and family. "What the water did, the wind. In a lot of places it's like somebody built a house out of toothpicks and just blew it down.
"It's crazy."
Brown's wife, Dee, grew up in Slidell and played high school basketball at Salmen. The couple met while playing together at Louisiana Tech in Ruston.
So Brown is quite familiar with the area, its inhabitants and their unyielding spirit in the face of disaster.
But he wasn't prepared for the utter destruction he witnessed in parts of the community as he made his way to check on his current home in the Turtle Creek subdivision, and a new home which he was scheduled to move into in two weeks in Lakeshore Estates on the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.
The Turtle Creek dwelling was practically unscathed, just minor wind damage. The lake house was flooded by more than a foot of water on the first level.
"Oh man, I was just blown away," Brown said. "People who have lived there all of their lives are basically homeless. It was just unbelievable. That's all I can say. It was an unbelievable site.
"But the one thing about those people: they haven't given up. They still have good spirit. They're upbeat. That was the most amazing thing. You could see despair on their face. But they were still upbeat and positive. They're going through a tough time. But you couldn't tell it by the way they were talking. Those people haven't given up. And everybody else shouldn't, either."
It appeared by Brown's estimation those most affected by Hurricane Katrina's deadly path lived closest to the lake.
"There are still some neighborhoods that are OK," he said. "But by the lake, everything took a tremendous hit. All the neighborhoods there got water. If you were inland, you had a chance. There were a few areas there that survived (flood waters).
"But there's a still a lot of wind damage and trees down. If you were by the water, though, you went under."
As he toured the area, friends and acquaintances who had stayed behind instead of fleeing told stories of rapid deterioration of conditions that nearly took their lives and tales of good fortune that saved others.
"People were barely escaping," Brown said. "The water came up so quick in some areas. One lady told me she was with a group of 50 people who gathered to take shelter in their church. They thought that was the best place for them to go.
"Then the water started rising. They all went up to the pulpit and the water level stopped right there. If it wasn't for that, 50 people would have passed.
"Another young lady I know, she and her young child were fighting for their lives when their neighbor came by in a boat and rescued them. She'd have been gone if it hadn't been for that."
Yet while Brown sees hope for his hometown, he is concerned for other nearby communities equally overwhelmed in Katrina's aftermath.
"All the people in rural areas, places like Chalmette, Folsom, Bogalusa, Waveland, Pass Christian . . . . those people got hit hard, too."
Brown, the Hornets player representative, said the NBA Players Association will soon announce a major relief effort, one for which they wanted him to fly to New York for a press conference.
"I can't make it to New York," Brown said. "I've got too much going on to get to New York. But we're putting something together to raise money, try to get the 'Feed The Children' group to start canvassing down here, and I'll do whatever I can to personally reach out.
"Right now, I got to get to work and clean up. It's just unbelievable. In your wildest nightmare, you couldn't dream up something like this."
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