By Michael Kunzelman, The Associated Press
DENHAM SPRINGS, La. — In 23 years of coaching football, Dru Nettles never had to deliver a pep talk like this.
Most of his players and coaches on Denham Springs High School’s football team lost homes when floodwaters ravaged their city in suburban Baton Rouge. Their battered school remains closed, but the team has a season-opening home game to play in two weeks.
Before they practiced Wednesday for the first time since the floods, Nettles sat them down on the purple logo at midfield and asked if they had seen aerial photographs of their inundated school.
“If you look at the back of campus, the one thing that didn’t go underwater was this logo,” Nettles said. “Awesome sign right there that this ‘DS’ was shining … to give people hope.”
The promise of Friday night football is tonic for a city at the epicenter of the catastrophe. Even the most modest signs of recovery are lifting weary spirits in Denham Springs, where flooding damaged an estimated 90 percent of homes and businesses.
Block by block, garbage trucks equipped with metal jaws are scooping up mounds of rancid debris from curbs and yards. Postal workers are delivering mail again. Insurance adjusters are inspecting gutted houses. A fast-food restaurant reopened close to nearby Interstate 12 that had been underwater.
“Everybody is trying so hard to get back to normalcy as much as they can. Yes, we are seeing progress. Every day, we finally see another business come back online,” said Denham Springs Mayor Gerard Landry.
But he fears it could take years for this city to fully recover after more than 2 feet of rain fell in the area over a three-day period two weeks ago.
Elvin Watts had no flood insurance for his shop in the touristy downtown antiques district. Watts, 69, estimates he lost up to $85,000 of inventory — almost everything he had inside Theatre Antiques Mall.
“Little by little, it’s going to the curb because it’s starting to mildew,” Watts said. “We’re pretty much back to square one here.”
Watts and his brother-in-law, John Houston, were cleaning up the shop Wednesday when a postal worker delivered his mail for the first time since the floods.
“Is that your renewal for your flood insurance?” Houston jokingly asked Watts, who laughed.
Gallows humor helps many cope with numbing loss.
Richard and Bridgette Harrington moved into their dream home a few weeks before nearly 4 feet of water demolished the house and ruined more than $20,000 in brand-new furniture.
Their flood policy doesn’t cover the home’s contents, including a $5,000 bed in which they slept just one night before the deluge came.
“The most expensive night’s sleep ever,” Richard Harrington said.
The Harringtons and their two daughters, 16 and 12, took a break from cleaning to watch a debris removal crew haul away their waterlogged possessions.
“It’s weird to be excited by your lifetime’s collection being trashed,” his wife said.
A football game at Denham Springs High School can draw thousands. The stands are bound to be filled when the team plays its first game Sept. 9.
The school’s band rehearsed Thursday for the first time since the storm, practicing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and singing their school’s alma mater. Band director Andrew Hunter said many of them arrived an hour early.
“Just beating us to the door, ready to go. Hugging each other. Catching up. Talking about how many feet of water they got in their homes,” Hunter said. “That’s what we talk about now.”
