Louisianians in Little Rock lend flood-hit home a hand

Tracy Windham gets a bowl of red beans and rice Saturday at 610 Bar & Grill in Little Rock during a fundraiser for victims of the recent flooding in the Baton Rouge area.
Tracy Windham gets a bowl of red beans and rice Saturday at 610 Bar & Grill in Little Rock during a fundraiser for victims of the recent flooding in the Baton Rouge area.

Hours away from her home state of Louisiana, Little Rock resident Kathy Ourso only could watch on the news as streets and houses flooded earlier this month.

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Drew Jansen plays piano and sings Saturday as people enjoy a brunch of authentic Cajun dishes during a fundraiser at 610 Bar & Grill in Little Rock.

The flooding devastated the Baton Rouge area and was categorized by the Red Cross as likely the worst natural disaster in the U.S. since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

"That's the hardest thing, when all this was happening, we were here," she said.

After the waters receded, Ourso and a group headed to Louisiana with a truck full of supplies to hand out.

[VIDEOS: Click here for videos of the flooding in Louisiana]

And on Saturday, she and other transplants from Baton Rouge continued their charitable efforts with the help of some classic Louisiana cuisine -- beignets, jambalaya and gumbo.

610 Bar & Grill in downtown Little Rock and Griffin Leggett Funeral Home hosted a fundraiser brunch Saturday, raising $5,200 for flood victims in Louisiana.

Ourso said federal aid only does so much, and many flood victims need money to replace destroyed furniture and other belongings. People need money to help them move back into their houses and begin to rebuild their lives.

610 Bar & Grill reached out to help the Baton Rouge transplants, who had been accepting donations through the funeral home for people affected by the flooding.

"They are bar patrons and regulars, but they are not just customers -- we became friends with them," said Lamor Williams, an owner at 610 Bar & Grill, which matched the first $1,000 in donations raised at the event. "We couldn't just stand by and not do anything."

The event had support from other businesses as well. Whole Hog Cafe donated sausage, while food supplier Ben E. Keith donated 20 pounds of shrimp and 20 pounds of chicken.

Although the flood has not gained the same national attention as large hurricanes, Williams said it was still devastating for the Baton Rouge area.

Volunteer Brittany Musso was just beginning her move to Little Rock from Baton Rouge when the flood hit, she said. Her neighborhood remained dry, but Musso said it was difficult to see her city hit so hard.

At one point during the flooding, she and her friends had gone to pick up a person whose house was taking in water when they saw a 73-year-old woman on her porch with no one nearby, she said.

They went back to get the woman, she said, and housed her for three days even though she was a stranger.

"She wound up getting 4½ feet of water -- she had flood insurance, thank God," Musso said. "But she had no help, nowhere to go."

Musso also helped a friend gut his house, she said, hauling his soaked family photo albums to the street.

In Baton Rouge, Ourso said she was helping her 11-year-old granddaughter empty a garbage can when they came across a poster the child had drawn at school, which had been ruined by the flood. Her granddaughter began to cry after seeing the poster.

"They were really just going through a grieving process," Ourso said. "Grieving the loss of the things that they knew, even the kids."

The money raised Saturday will go to flooding victims Ourso's group personally knows in Louisiana, she said, including people who might not have flood insurance.

At the downtown bar Saturday, conversations hummed while live piano music played in the background.

The volunteers for the event wore white T-shirts with the image of Arkansas and Louisiana on the front.

"We're neighbors," Ourso said. "Neighbors helping neighbors."

Metro on 08/28/2016

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