The Hurricane Ida made landfall about 40 miles south of here. We've
heard estimated winds well over 200 miles an hour. When it hit fuchsia
some cousins of ours that were down they were texting me like it's bad be careful it's coming.
During the eye as I walked outside it was you know calm. I would say probably 30,40 mile a
hour winds, enough to go outside and inspect the house. I lost two windows. I started my generator.
I started my table saw and started ripping some boards to plug the windows and during that,
one of our employees came out of the bushes kind of like a Field of Dreams movement and just you
know he had this frightening scare of his face, completely wet and said Chris we don't know what
to do. What I found out is they lost their complete roof ceilings. They were clean, their mom and dad
told them to cling to the wall, and just ride it out and you know, luckily for them I was there
and they said we don't know what to do. I said get in my house you know it's safe there. You
know there's a roof over my house. We had 16 family members from a two-year-old that was still being
nursed to little kids, to adults, um and they ran into the house and they just lost everything.
My home which is just right up the road. It's pretty stoutly built and it's got a semi basement,
in it and things were getting bad and I told my wife I said let's go downstairs and we did.
During that time frame, I texted my employee who he spoke about and I said
are y'all okay and he said no. He says roof gone. Wait up against the wall, pulled it off.
My wife and everybody else at four o'clock in the morning they were going to stay.
I stayed and I can remember being through and then talking to me I just had cell phone coverage
and um I want you to go out and see what damage you had no it's still a hurricane because it
basically sat over some four hours. Well the news says it should have been passed. They
said well then you just don't know what they're talking about because it really was that hadn't.
I'd been home. I'd have lost my back porch and door because I actually had to brace a two by
six from the wall to the door to keep it blowing in, and I lost major live oaks and this and that
but the hardest part would be like him was this guy I talked to him
the last time they were walking down in the closet didn't talk to him for two days
but you're okay you have to be there for them but also to be there for the farm but they'd be there
for our community we know with our equipment from sunshine that we were the first responders
we were able to the whole road here you could not walk through um you couldn't drive a vehicle you
couldn't even get a John Deere Gator through we used our big excavator we had a John Deere
skid steer as well just to clean the roads for national guard for emergency personnel
and also I mean just to go check on my first thing was to check on my grandmother but
I jumped on my motorbike that was the only way to get around check on Brian
and check on my dad because there was no coverage, no cell coverage, just to make sure they were okay.
Um and then they went from there you know how far out can we reach and and tell people um I think
our excavator went through uh we moved a lot of trees which you'll see here.
In the community I cleaned up tens, twenties, y'all thirty yards probably would
probably hauled a hundred two hundred trees. You know full grown hundred year old oak trees.
Any pieces you know honestly a life saving for a lot of people I took my John Deere
Gator and I had some big snips and we started clearing the road the best we could I mean
for two weeks after the storm you're still having to go around trees in the highway
where you know they're across the highway we took our excavator some tractors etc and just tried
to pull trees off I went to all friends, family, anybody that reached out with our escalators and
cleaned up their yards took trees off their houses hauled it all the way to graceland where he lives
to one of his employees houses and pulled a pecan tree off of his room because it was
falling through his room for him and his family you know just whatever we could do to help
yes we will overcome my family's been in this since 1853 and it's not going to stop now.