This e-mail was forwarded to us by an employee of the LCM School District. It is written by Sam Kittrell, Police Chief of the Orange Police Department.

Good Morning everyone,

I apologize for not communicating yesterday. We lost our cell phone service yesterday because of the flooding and that also blocked my internet access.

We got temporary cell phone towers by dark and we were once again able to communicate. My voice mail on my phone was full and I had 140 new emails during the time I was down. At least only about two of them were SPAM.

Before I forget….. I am going to try to get photos placed on our website that Lynn Arceneaux and Ken Thayer yesterday. Late yesterday evening we sent them out in a airboat to try to record some of what was going on. Our website is www.orangepd.com I am not sure what time this will be. We don’t work on a the most structured of schedules these days. I did get a few hours of sleep last night for the first time in several days.

I have not even had time to read those emails but I hope to read and respond to them as I can throughout the day. I also want to apologize to those of you who I had to cut short on phone calls. This truly has been one of those times where we have been up to our rear ends in alligators and we are trying to drain the swamp.

The flooding in most parts of the areas has receded. The areas that are still directly impacted by the river or bayous remain flooded. The Sabine, as of late last night, was still over the top of our levy. But Jim Wolf, our Engineer is on a boating excursion with Warren Claybar and Hershel Stagner as we speak to make that assessment once again. Steve Jones, Mike Zeto, and I just tried to get to the police station but the water is still about three feet deep in the roadway at some points so we did not make it. Most of the businesses are still inaccessible but the water has retreated from the buildings. The outlying neighborhoods that had water mostly in the streets yesterday are almost completely clear this morning.

Yesterday I was out and saw Debbie Hayes Goforth on the side of Park Street and her dad’s house in Pinehurst had flooded late in the day. Keet made sure he got out. While I was talking to Debbie, Pinehurst Fire Department came through the flood waters with Rosalie Lucia Eason and Karl Eason. They live across the street from Debbie’s dad (Park Street) and they had to evacuate just ahead of the rising flood waters. Luckily they did not get any water in their house.

Yesterday we saw some heroic efforts on the parts of so many first responders and volunteers from this area. For those of you not here, or those of you who have never experienced an event such as this, it would have to be difficult for you to understand wide range of issues that you encounter at times like these. From the perspective of local government we are faced with things that we fortunately do not encounter on a daily basis. In order to maintain order and to restore services we first must make an assessment of the damages. There is no way to do this other than to have “boots on the ground” or in this case “boats in the water”. Yesterday we had several teams assembled to make those assessments. Today we have hundreds of boats, yesterday started with none. But people like Warren Claybar (son of Brown) and Hershell Stagner came through for us as did Officers such as Jimbo Davis, Jesse Steele and others. Our employees brought their own boats and equipment out and used them.

I was talking to the Mayor yesterday. He led one of the assessment forays into the heart of the flood yesterday. We talked about the issues that you face when you are on a mission that is vital to getting a recovery plan implemented but in traveling to check on such things such as the water level over the top of the levy you encounter injured people, the elderly, children, etc, clinging to roof stops screaming for you to help them. What do you do? Do you continue on the mission that is critical to the overall safety of all of the community, if you stop to help people how do you make that initial assessment of who do you help. You are in a boat and you can only rescue so many people. Then, just to add a little more to the situation, you see where people have left pets tied up and the pets are struggling to stay alive while tethered to the ground five feet or more feet below. I don’t mean to paint such a gloomy picture but I just want each of you to understand what we face during those times. And in the case of the Mayor I want to say that he and his team accomplished their initial mission and they also provided help to more people than I ever thought possible for the time frame and the conditions.

And for me to get phone calls from my friends and they tell me they are on their roof tops needing to be rescued was tough. But no matter how tough that was I know it was not as tough as it was for them to be sitting on top of their flooded house. I also hear the concerns in the voices of those that call wondering how their home are and in many cases. One of the last things I did last night was to check on a house for some friends (Darren and Teri Hoyland). Their house was dry but they had a big oak tree across the roof. Fortunately it did not appear to have punctured the roof. Unfortunately for so many of you there was worse damage. Thank you for all that have called and written expressing concerns and prayers for me. I have appreciated it. My house was fine.

The Cove area is still under a lot of water. And Bridge City is still having so many issues and I know hundreds of people there with flooded homes.

Many are wondering about access to this area. Bridge City is still pretty much on total lockdown. Even with the holograms citizens are not being allowed in. In other areas such as Orange we are allowing residents in to check on things during the day but we are restricting any movement after dark to law enforcement only. I know this generates frustrations but there is no perfect system on how to accomplish this. We are charged with taking care of things here and sometimes this conflicts with a lot of movement in or out. It would take me too much time to explain this.

But after a couple of days for us to take care of things initially we do like to have our citizens back to at least take care of things around their houses. Then if they want to leave that is fine. It is hot and humid here. No stores are open. Fuel is available to the public at the truck stops at 62 and 10. HEB is preparing to open for emergency personnel now and will be opening for the public soon. We expect Walmart to do the same soon. We are working hard to take care of things here. I know your frustrations in not knowing what is going on. I will try to respond to individual emails later but that is not a certainty.

Be sure to check later for the pictures. I wish I had time to give more details. I need to get back to other things now though. Thanks for your patience and for your prayers.

If anyone else has information, please send it to us. We will be happy to facilitate information flow.