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Family's survival story: Sought shelter from rising water in ceiling alcove
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DENHAM SPRINGS – For many following the recent flooding over the past week, the weekend will be back-breaking, but not for the tight-knit group on Bend Road in Denham Springs who is just lucky to be alive.
The house, built in 1943, for decades stayed dry.
"We've had high water before.. as long as we had air we'd be okay," John Cooper Fore, Bend Road resident, said.
Fore, his wife and 12-year-old son stayed at the home watching the water rise as the sever weather worsened.
"We walked around here until it was about 5 foot deep and they couldn't breathe anymore," Fore said.
An attempt to escape didn't work because the water was too high and they had to turn around.
"We knew it was coming up but didn't know it was coming up that bad," Fore said. "It was rising about a foot and a half an hour which I though was unusual," he said.
The water came in their home sometime on Saturday and the three of them floated on a mattress for two hours until it couldn't float any longer.
"And then it got a little higher and higher and higher it got up to the ceiling fans in there and we couldn't walk around anymore," Fore said.
The family had to take refuge in a cubby hole above the water.
"And then we climbed up in that hole. It's 3 ft by 3ft by 8 ft, about the size of a deep freeze," Fore said.
Fore managed to call for rescue and finally a boat from Iberville Parish got him and his family out of the home safely.
Fore knocked out the glass out of the window that was about 20 feet high.
"The good thing was, we all kept our cool," Fore said.
Fore drove a pick-up truck a couple of blocks away from his home to use after the flood, but that was gone too.
"When the deputies took me out I said just take me to my truck...brand new truck," Fore said.
Fore has spent the past days cleaning up, but he remains calm and with a smile on his face.
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