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American Flag Flies
Defiant
By G. MICHAEL HARMON
PORT SULPHUR, La. (AP)-It was completely out of place and no one knew if it was an exercise in patriotism or a totem to one man’s refusal *o surrender to the elements but there it stood, a tiny American flag fluttering from a makeshift staff at the center of a rectangle of concrete blocks that once supported a home.
The two lumbering tour buses chugged slowly past the scene Tuesday and 80 legislators craned their necks toward the sprig of color and smiled small smiles of understanding.
It was the last thing they would have to smile about for several hours as the buses plunged deeper and deeper into the southern tip of Plaquemines Parish and became surrounded by the terrible panorama of destruction left by Hurricane Camille.
"You can show all the film and pictures you want to but you can’t believe it until you
In Plaquemines
see it,” said Rep. Dick Guidry, a ranking member of the special hurricane damage committee that promoted the trip for the legislators.
“The destruction is terrible j all right,” said one lawmaker. “But it is the suddenness with which it begins that really hits1 you. It’s like a guillotine falling —one second you’ve got a head and the next second you don’t.”
The first exclamation of disbelief struck as the buses crossed the Empire Canal bridge about 40 miles south of to detour around a house in the middle of the road.
At Empire and Buras, the houses are demolished, but still j recognizable. They sprawl at weird angles up against trees and at one point there is a line of them atop a levee, the apparent victims of an enraged giant who kicked and punched his way through the two towns.
Corps of Engineers’ trucks lined the road and sweating men i cursed as they loaded unrecognizable hunks of metal and tons and tons and tons of unimagi-able trash.
The scene at Triumph, Booth-ville and Venice is less hectic because there is little to clear away. The flood waters of Camille swept through the area like a gigantic bulldozer. Nothing is left.
Concrete blocks that once supported homes and thriving places of business lined the highway like a thousand tombstones. Gaily colored house trailers offered a stark contrast to the brown and cracked landscape.
Most of the vegetation, including millions of dollars worth of orange groves, is dead, killed
by the salt water that poured over inadequate levees and at some places crested at 20 feet.
And what was not killed by waters from the gulf, was poisoned by a coating of sticky black oil that poured from huge storage tanks at the Getty Oil Co. terminal. The tanks were twisted and bent as if they were made of tinfoil.
Clothing and bits of lumber hung from the tops of trees and the battered hulks of autos sprawled at awkward angles, offering grim evidence of the fury of the storm.
At Boothville, a water tower stands a lonely sentry over the desolation.
“Where are all the buildings?” asked one lawmaker.
“Who knows” replied Rep. Frank Patti of Belle Chasse, who acted as a guide for one of the buses. “Over the levee into the swamp. Who knows?” “The press and TV didn't begin to show all this,” said House Speaker John Garrett. “It is much worse than I ever imagined.”
Lt. Gov. C. C. Aycock com-; pared the scarred countryside to the destruction leveled on Europe in World War II.
“I've flown over the area twfee, but you don't get any idea of the damage until you can see it up close,” he said. “I was in London in 1942 during the blitz and this is worse than anything I ever saw there.”
At Venice, where Louisiana 23 dumps into the swamp, Leander Perez Jr., directed work crews from a communication center in a huge crew boat.
“We shall come kack,” Perez said. “We will rebuild Plaquemines Parish.”	I