Hurricane Audrey ripped Cameron a year ago today : More Than 550 Persons Lost Lives in Storm

              (Times-Picayune special correspondeni
CAMERON,    La.—One    yea
after a brutal hurricane rippe
through Cameron, this tow: still lives in the shadow of tei ror that stalked it for 10 in credible hours.
Surface surgery has been per formed, but emotional scar may never be healed.
There is little visible evidenci of hurricane Audrey now—{ rusting refrigerator in a lonel: pasture, a foundation that hac once been a home, burial vault; swept out of cemeteries anc now stacked along the roads But no amount of new homes schools and businesses can re place more than 550 persons who lost their lives when the Gulf of Mexico was whipped 21 miles inland last June 27. AUDREY IS OGRE
Audrey is the ogre that has moved in with every family like an unwelcome guest. Those who have lived through it—and nearly every family lost at least one member—speak of the storm in intimate, but never affectionate, terms.
Cameron lives now by two calendars. There is the Julian calendar with days, months and years, and then there is the Dther, the more realistic— "since  Audrey."
It is to be expected that, should a man lose His home, le will, build another, M only out 3f a need for shelter. But when i man loses his home, his busi-less, perhaps even his family, something stronger than just luman nature must come into Dlay.
VOLUNTEERS  WORK
Sheriff O. B. Carter of Cam-! imn parish told me, "A man nust have confidence and. jourage, and a belief in the .fu-i ure to want to come back aft-! ir something like that." These >eople, whose innate hardiness tas been nurtured by earlier nears of hardship and remote-iis, have surely shown that, md a little more.
When I first set foot in Cam-ron two days after the hurri-ane, along with Milton Bracker I the New York Times, a ense of... tight-lipped urgency ripped everyone. Orders vyere arked in terse commands, iwmen and rescue workers talked the silt-covered streets l quick, long-legged gaits, and verywhere was the stigma of eath:a hasty circle of red on
The  natural  by-product  tns s followed was a statewide, eve nationwide,    determination    t "do   right   by   these   people.1 Money   flowed   in,   with   som gifts as high as $50,000 each ) and   thousands   of   voluntee r workers  unselfishly gave thei * time and energy. From all ove 1 Louisiana AFL-CIO workers or "I ganized a mass rebuilding prc " gram,   and in five week end finished 22 homes. A climax t< " this program came as I watchec 5 three-year-old   Rita   Primeau; struggle up concrete steps int< ■ the  new  home  of  her  grand i mother.    The    old,    rambling r house   that   had   served   then I for a generation lay shatterec i in   nearby   pastures.   The '■ Primeaux family escaped deatr when they spent the hurricane in   the   South   Cameron   Higr , school, about a mile away. Ever so,   the   brand-new   brick   anc steel  school building was partially destroyed.
SOME GRUMBLE The Red Cross in outright donations spent more than $2 million/-Equally large sums came ir loans from the Small Business Administration, insurance payments, and state and federal benefits. Most monies went toward rebuilding a home, a store, or for working equipment. In Cameron, where oil, fishing and trapping are major industries, a man's tools might well be a new trawl or set oi traps.
Inevitably, though, followed grumbling and disillusioned, and a slowdown hastened by month after month of bitterly cold rain. One Cameron spokesman said the surest way to make an enemy of everyone in town was to have a million dollars to give away. How ever, Cameron was later to show its gratitude by voluntarily doubling its Red Cross quota in March.
Drifters, too, began showing up jon the streets of Cameron, most [looking for a few months of work, others looking for an easy dollar. In most every case, however, ihardpressed townspeople had first I call on jobs; and transients were I given bus fare back home. A few [stole or became rowdy and ended iup in jail.
"Every community's got people who think the world owes them a living," Sheriff Carter said. ''We've got people here who think they should be taken by the hand and told, "Here, Mr. Broussard, you've been through a hurricane so we're giving you a new house. And you'll find a new car in the garage. Now go into the house and look around. It's all furnished and you'll find the larder stocked
for  vnn
"That's the type who spill oui their bitterness to newspapermen But the good people, the pioneers, keep their mouths shut and gc about rebuilding their homes and businesses like credits to the community."
RIDES OUT STORM White-haired, with glasses and a thin mustache, Carter rode the wreck of his home into the swamps, then waded through receding waters to the parish courthouse. There he stayed, day and night, directing rescue operations and emergency measures.
In every instance, Cameron has rebuilt better than before — one of the ironies of every such tragedy. Rebuilding a new life, one made empty by the loss of loved ones, is a harder, more personal task. Gone, too, are every remembrance of the past life: The family Bible with its record of births and deaths, the wedding picture faded yellow, or a school snapshot so proudly given.
Dr- Cecil W. Clark, 33-year-old physician honored by the American Medical Association for his tireless work following the hurricane, has rebuilt his life and his practice. He felt Audrey's sting, foi three of his five children were lost. I found his eight-year-old son Joe playing with two other children on a merry-go-round at the school grounds. With another brother, he had escaped the storm by being lashed into the top of an oak tree; but now he was barefooted and happy with the end of school, and memories of that fateful day were pushed far into his subconscious.
Thousands across the nation rallied behind fund drives to restore the wrecked clinics of Dr. Clark and the two other physicians of Cameron parish. Dr. Clark, along with Sheriff Carter and other leaders, has been the embodiment of the new spirit of Cameron.
TERROR HOLDS A feeling of newness—homes, buildings, automobiles, even personal items—stamps the whole parish like a fresh haircut. But lying just below the surface is 'the never-to-be-forgotten terror. This was amptly demonstrated in late May when the entire community of Oak Grove was evacuated because of a tornado funnel cloud..
Perpetuating the newness are many public buildings planned for Cameron. The national Junior Chamber of Commerce is building a library, there is a $1% million I school program nearly completed, and the American Legion, is studying the need for a hospital.
11   All eyes in Cameron are focused Ion the first anniversary of the " jhurricane. This has been the goal 3 in returning the parish to normal-2 cy. Most homes have been com-jpleted, electricity has long been restored,   and   telephone   service is   almost  back  to  normal.   An ultra-modern  concrete  and   steel \ elementary   school   raised   seven \ feet  above   the   coastal   lowland ; is fast nearing completion on the '; site where the old school building Jlwas- torn to splinters. This hur-;!ricane-proof   school   typifies   the ; new,  unyieldnng buildings  being constructed.   If   ever   the   Gulf \ should strike  again,   the  people ' will have many places to escape ' I its lash.
HEADACHES AHEAD 1 The hardships of the 4000 survivors did not end with the last gust of wind or the last Red Cross grant. Although in an unprecedented program power lines were re strung and many buildings made inhabitable again, and other remedial steps were taken, the real headaches lay ahead. , That the people of Cameron conquered them must stand as a memorial to their courage and faith and energy. As one survivor said, "You can get a lot done working 18 hours a day."
How did an area half again as large as the state of Rhode Island get back on its feet, when for three months afterwards there was no electricity, no water, no place to live except in a tent, and no place to eat except in a Red Cross chow line?
What had only been a fight for a new home in the fall turned to a struggle for survival in the slow, freezing rains, and for the first time in seven years, snow. Reconstruction ground to a virtual halt in foot-thick mire, and thousands of cattle not claimed in the hurricane died of starvation and exposure. The salt water driven far inland had destroyed their pasture land, although 23 carloads of surplus corn was shipped in during the worst winter months.
ROADS WASHED OUT Immediately following the storm every road in the parish was washed out. This, plus the fact j that the parish is. largely coastal swamps, forced rescures into helicopters and boats. When dawn came the next day the Army was already bulldozing heavy equipment over the roads to make them passable, opening this vital artery for food, medical supplies, water, communications equipment and electric generators. Even today, hardsurfacing of the highways is still going on, and one section of road between Creole and Cameron is so rough that any speed more than twenty miles an hour is dangerous.