Combre Memorial Park

Hundreds of people killed in Cameron were taken to Lake Charles for burial. (American Press Archives)Retired plant operator and Lake Charles native Merrill Guillory, 67, published his first collection of poems in April, one of which reflects on the day Hurricane Audrey hit Southwest Louisiana — a day he vividly remembers.It was the morning of June 27, 1957, sixty years ago today. Guillory was 8 at the time, the second oldest of five. That day, he said, he woke up to the sound of a bullhorn as members of the National Guard loaded residents into big green trucks. African American residents, separated from whites because of segregation, piled into Sacred Heart Catholic Church and watched through the windows as the storm journeyed toward them.“We could feel the rumbling of the winds; we could see trees bending to the point of wanting to break,” Guillory said. Anything that wasn’t tied down blew away, he said, and dark clouds gradually engulfed the church in heavy rain.“It was very intimidating,” he said. “It was something that, even at the age of 8, you don’t forget. You know something is happening. You know that this is something different.” In his poem “Summer of ‘57,” published in “Journey: A Collection of Writings by Merrill Guillory,” Guillory recounts the sense of doom he experienced that day.He said that, because of how unexpected and deadly Audrey was, he chose to compare her in the poem to a predator stalking its prey. One paragraph reads: “As she sucks the warm air, a personality takes shape. / The nature of that persona would merge, a torrent of death. / With each movement a well-defined eye emerges, / slowly, with a creep to the north she would stalk her prey.” +2  Guillory's book "Journey"The poem goes on to lament the subsequent devastation: “Rain poured with dreary steadiness, / slanting down with stinging arrows. / Infuriating the wind, which seemed enraged / by the indifference of the water, / the wind shook the coast in a mighty rage, / uplifting everything in revulsion and throwing it like a / discar... (American Press)

PREPARING FOR THE STORM: WHAT TO DO BEFORE A HURRICANE HITS Here are the 10 most fatal storms in U.S. history:1. Galveston, Texas, 1900The debris and devastation following the hurricane in Galveston, Texas, in 1900, which remains the deadliest storm in U.S. history.(AP) This disaster left a devastating impact on its victims. With winds blowing at a high of 155 mph, the death toll was tallied at between 8,000 and 12,000 people — an all-time high for hurricane-related fatalities in recorded history, according to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Over a century later, the category 4 hurricane in Galveston remains the benchmark against which all other hurricanes are measured based on its status as the foremost lethal storm in U.S. history.2. Lake Okeechobee, Florida, 1928A plaque in West Palm Beach, Florida marks the site where 674 of the victims of the Lake Okeechobee hurricane in 1928 are buried.(J. PAT CARTER/AP) The notorious tempest hit the coastal areas of Florida with ferocious force and gusts of wind recorded at a high of 155 mph, according to the NOAA. Choppy waves as high as 20 feet crashed into the barrier islands of Florida, including Palm Beach, the National Weather Service reported. Thousands of residents drowned as water submerged an area that was approximately 6 miles deep and 75 miles long around the south end of Lake Okeechobee, according to the NWS. The category 4 storm caused a staggering 2,500 to 3,000 deaths, the NOAA reported.3. Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana and Mississippi, 2005Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina submerged the streets near downtown New Orleans, Louisiana in August, 2005.(DAVID J. PHILLIP/ASSOCIATED PRESS) It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Hurricane Katrina made the list. The category 3 cyclone, had winds peaking at 125 mph, which pummeled Louisiana and Mississippi — causing a devastating death toll of 1,200, with hundreds of thousands more losing their homes, according to the NOAA.KATRINA SURIVOR HELPED PARENTS, ELDERLY OUT OF NEW ORLEANS An astounding 80% of the city of New Orleans... (New York Daily News)