"Brian, attached is my story on my '31 Ford highboy roadster on a homebuilt Deuce frame on the roadster I'm building (again!), as well as our hurricane experience. I was building the roadster in the traditional style as much as possible, with F-1 steering and all, but chose to sneak in the Vega box, and a dual master cylinder for safety. I was only a week or two from driving it after four years of parts gathering, but oh well, I'll get there eventually.
"Anyway, I had just pulled the engine, an original '62 Vette 300hp 327, to begin painting the chassis. When it began to look like Hurricane Katrina had us in mind, I put everything as high as possible in my shop, even though I never had any sort of water in there before. I thought at most, I would have a wet floor. My home is on a hill, but overlooks a bayou. The water had risen before but never came close to my house. I had toyed with staying during the storm, as I had weathered many hurricanes at home. There was always a tendency here for the media to over-hype a storm, and a lot of people began to doubt the intensity of approaching hurricanes. There were several I can remember that were duds. But with two small kids to think about, I decided to head north. When they started comparing Katrina to Camille, I began to worry. Camille hit when I was 5 years old, and I grew up believing it was the freak-of-nature hurricane that could never happen again. So, we did evacuate about 15 miles inland, and the storm seemed to last forever.
"Camille raced through in a few hours, but Katrina lasted over 10 hours. With winds still probably at tropical-storm level, I had to see what was left and finally made my way back home (after helping to clear eight or nine trees off the highway). By the time we got to our neighborhood, we were literally sick-just incredible destruction everywhere, to the point that we could only stare. My wife was crying, thinking about the likely loss of life, and all the homes just wiped away. I didn't tell her, but I really felt our home was gone. It is unprotected on the south side, with nothing to block the wind. When we saw our house from a distance, it looked to be just as we left it, other than some roof damage. But, I was speechless when I walked downstairs to my 30x40 shop, where it looked like a bomb had gone off. Water had reached 7 feet up the cinderblock walls. Everything that had been on a table or shelf was on the floor, mixed with mud, oil, tree limbs, marsh grass from the bayou, wire, fishing line, broken glass, shingles, you name it. My tool cabinet, which I could barely move, was at the other end of the shop upside down and twisted. I saw my Tri-power setup on the ground, and shook the muddy water out of it. All the fasteners, brackets, and other small parts from three cars, which I had nicely organized, were buried in mud. Welder, grinders, and plasma cutter that I had put 5 feet off the ground were filled with mud. The riding mower I had put behind my roadster was now upside down and in front of it. The garage doors were blown out, the windows and steel door were gone-frame and all-and wires were hanging down where light fixtures once were and the water pipes torn loose. It took several hours just to pick up all the paint and spray cans that floated under my neighbor's deck.
"When my eyes finally picked out my roadster in the piles of debris, it looked like a bare chassis. I remember thinking, 'Didn't I have the body on the frame?' The left quarter-panel (a nice new Brookville piece) was now under the frame, along with one door, the cowl, windshield, and a tree limb. The radiator was hanging off the frame and the '32 grille shell was under the front axle. The other quarter was torn off and under one rear tire. The other door was under the riding mower. Rust had already started forming on the chrome hairpins and axle. I found the '32 tank in the neighbor's backyard. My compressor had somehow got out of the shop and was lying next to my house. My oxygen bottle was down at the water's edge on the bayou, along with the hood to my mower.
"I have been busy trying to salvage things, but the two days before we could get back allowed a lot of parts to ruin. Still, I have found a lot of the things I never thought I would see again, such as my pair of Guide headlights. The Deuce frame is coated with a heavy layer of rust from the saltwater, but when I get the compressor replaced, I'll start sandblasting it and it should be OK. I drained five gallons of saltwater out of the 327, and also the 350 in a friend's '41Chevy truck that had the misfortune of being next to the roadster. It was a radical sectioned, channeled, and widened little truck that I was putting finishing touches on, as it was to be painted the following week. It had a really nice 350/350 combo, lots of billet, Vintage Air, smoothed doors, and new 20-inch wheels. Hopefully his insurance will cover it, as he had just bought the truck a few weeks before. The good news for me was that my '37 Ford slantback would have normally been down in the shop, but instead was in the garage where my wife's car usually is, and was unscathed. So, all in all, in spite of the loss of a 25-year accumulation of parts and tools, I feel blessed that we fared as well as we did, because it could have been much worse."