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In destroyed town, a symbol of hope

In Cameron, La., did a statue of the Virgin Mary, symbolizing the town's rebirth from an earlier hurricane, survive?

By TAMARA LUSH
Published September 27, 2005

CAMERON, La. - Pete Picou Jr. knew his town was gone.

He had flown over Cameron a day or two ago, can't remember exactly when. His convenience store was blown off its foundation. His house was torn in half.

Hurricane Rita made landfall about 30 miles to the west of this small bayou town of shrimpers and oil workers. Wind, floods and mud laid waste to almost every building in Cameron, home to about 2,000 people.

But Picou, high school civics teacher and the town's former emergency management chief, wanted to check on one thing Monday: the statue of the Virgin Mary at the Our Lady of the Sea Catholic Church.

He remembers when the statue was brought to town in 1963, six years after Hurricane Audrey killed 600 people in the area. Picou was 9 years old then, and Cameron looked as it does today: a mound of muddy, waterlogged detritus rotting in the swamp.

The statue symbolized a new chapter in Cameron's history. Carved out of white marble in Spain, it depicted Mary with her arm around a young girl. The statue greeted everyone who drove into the church parking lot.

"It says underneath the statue, "Do not harm my children,"' Picou said.

Rita killed no one in Cameron. Everyone fled, as he had told them to do so many times in his 30 years as emergency director.

But Rita hit everything, even the town's cemeteries: Crypts were ripped open and caskets floated a dozen miles away. Human bones lay in the sun and broken caskets littered a lawn near a crucifix. Picou was relieved to see that his father's casket was still firmly inside his crypt. His aunt's and uncle's weren't so lucky.

As he approached the church by airboat Monday, one side looked like it had been bombed. Debris from other buildings landed in the sanctuary, and the pews still inside stood in two inches of water.

He walked toward the church on dry land ahead of a group of FEMA workers, and then stopped.

"Oh, hell," he said. "The statue is gone."

It was quiet, the only sound the buzz of a military helicopter overhead.

"She's given up on us," Picou said.

The base was still there, though. The inscription read: "Erected 1963 in the path of Hurricanes Audrey and Carla."

Picou walked behind the pedestal.

"There she is!"

Mary had toppled over on her back. She faced the sky, not a speck of mud or a blade of grass on her.

Picou grasped the statue's right hand, still outstretched and uncracked.

"We're back to take care of you," he said. "Sweetheart, you did your job."

--Tamara Lush can be reached at 727-893-8612 or at lush@sptimes.com

[Last modified September 27, 2005, 02:45:31]