Sunny Saratoga, Devastated in Slidell

By Thomas Dimopoulos


SARATOGA SPRINGS — Hank Snelgrove called his wife Averil on Sunday at
their home in Slidell, La. and told her she should leave town. She told
him she didn’t want to leave the house.

Monday Slidell, La. took a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina, and the
Saratoga Springs man sat by his telephone. He waited and waited. And
then he waited some more.

“For three days there was no communication,” said Snelgrove. “I didn’t
know if my wife was alive or if she was dead.”

Snelgrove grew up in Saratoga Springs in the 1930s and 40s, and still
spends part of the year in the city in a house that has been in the
family since the 1700s. The Snelgroves spend most of the year in their
home in Slidell and usually make a summer visit to the Spa City
together.

“My wife and I usually come up in August, but this year she couldn’t get
away from work,” he said.

“She works for Lockheed Martin as a contract person and she was really
busy working with the space shuttle because of problem with the foam. So
she said, ‘You go ahead and go up there (to Saratoga)’, which is what I
did,” Snelgrove said. Visiting with him over the weekend was stepson
Greg Miller, who is a member of the National Guard.

“He was up here with me when he got orders to go back to Louisiana on
Sunday,” Snelgrove said. The flight was diverted to Jackson, Miss.

Miller, who is stationed a few miles away from the Snelgroves’ home in
Sidell, was met by his step brother Bill. The pair drove to Louisiana to
stay with Averil in the family home, four miles from Lake Pontchartrain.
They got in at 1:30 a.m. A few hours later, Hurricane Katrina arrived.

“It was a direct hit, right into Slidell,” Snelgrove said.

For three days, Snelgrove waited for some type of communication.

“The first news I heard came late Wednesday afternoon. My son Bill got
to Baton Rouge, La. where he was able to use a phone. That’s what I
found out that my wife was OK,” he said.

“We are very fortunate compared to so many other people. The water is
half-way into Slidell, but we’re about 17 feet above sea level so we
don’t have the water problem that New Orleans has,” he said. “We had a
wind problem.”

“A tree came down and did damage to part of the building,” Snelgrove
said. “My wife’s vehicle was totally demolished and we have several
friends whose houses are now on the water, but we were lucky when I
think what happened to so many people. We can replace cars. We can’t
replace people,” he said.

“You know, I’m looking at the weather and today it’s so beautiful up
here. Down there, it’s a catastrophe. I don’t know that people really
understand what’s going on there,” Snelgrove said.

“There is no power, no phone, no water. I don’t even know how much food
they have. There are houses in the water in Slidell. And New Orleans is a
dead city. There’s nothing there,” he said, relieved that his wife is
OK, although he hasn’t spoken directly to her yet. He doesn’t know when
he will.

“It’s a day to day thing,” he said. “The devastation is incredible.”

The Saratogian