FRENCH SETTLEMENT — A Livingston Parish family feels like they are facing a nightmare since Hurricane Francine hit the area in early September. While damages to the general area were not significant, a family living near French Settlement is among the ones who lost everything from the storm.
At the start of Francine, a tree fell onto the mobile home that Tiffani Kenyon, her husband Joshua Duplantis and their four-year-old daughter were renting. The tree also fell onto their two cars, leaving them without reliable transportation. They were home at the time.
“It was scary,” Kenyon recalled.
Their neighbor’s tree had fallen not long before and missed the neighbor’s house, so the family made a decision to all gather in the living room for safety.
“It’s a good thing we did, because the tree went right through my baby’s room,” she explained.
The tree had uprooted, leaving behind a pool of water where the base had been.
Their daughter was pretty shaken up at first, Kenyon said, but is doing a little better emotionally now.
“She keeps telling everybody how her room broke, and she wants to go to her new home,” Kenyon said.
The family was renting the mobile home, and after the tree fell, she said their landlord basically told them just to find somewhere else to live. They did not have renter’s insurance and do not have enough funds to buy a new home, she added. However, the landlord’s insurance will pay to fix the trailer, she said.
The couple only had liability insurance on their cars, and her husband is unable to reliably get to work at this time. The family is currently staying with family in LaPlace while trying to get back on their feet.
“We’re pretty miserable right now,” she said. “We just want to get back to normal, we need to get back over there for jobs and school. And my husband’s on the verge of losing his job because we have no transportation.”
Because Livingston Parish has not yet been approved for federal disaster assistance, the Kenyon family cannot get any help from FEMA at this time.
They are in the process of looking for a new home and vehicles, but it hasn’t been easy, she said.
“It’s been two weeks now and we’re just ready to get home,” she said.
The family has set up a GoFundMe link for any donations.
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