Tag: Hurricane Laura

A Home for the Arts: Lake Charles Central School Building Restored

An old school building in downtown Lake Charles, Louisiana, has reopened its doors after years of repairs following the damage caused by Hurricanes Laura and Delta in 2020. According to this article from The Advocate, the historic Central School building, which served as a cultural hub for the city, is once again becoming a thriving center for arts, nonprofits, and cultural organizations.

Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter expressed his excitement about the reopening, emphasizing the vital role Central School played in fostering arts and cultural activities. The building served as an incubator for aspiring artists, musicians, and performers, providing a space for them to work, collaborate, and inspire one another. Kari Casey, the director of outreach and programming for the Children’s Museum of Southwest Louisiana, highlighted the benefits of having everyone in one place, enabling the exchange of ideas and a sense of community among the organizations.

The Children’s Museum of Southwest Louisiana, which lost its space due to Hurricane Laura, is currently awaiting the construction of its new building. Casey emphasized the collective effort to revitalize Lake Charles, particularly in the arts and humanities sector. The reopening of Central School is a significant step in that direction, as it reignites the city’s cultural spirit and provides a platform for artists to carry on the tradition.

The Lake Charles Little Theater, founded in 1926, also found a temporary home at Central School. After losing its original location to Hurricane Laura, the theater had been operating in borrowed and temporary spaces. With Central School reopening, the theater now has a permanent home, at least until it can rebuild at its old location. Brett Downer,the director of the theater’s board, expressed gratitude for the stability the school building offers, providing space for rehearsals, auditions, offices, and future shows.

In addition to longstanding organizations like the Children’s Museum and the Little Theater, newer organizations have also found a place within the historic school building. Smoke & Barrel, a nonprofit responsible for hosting the Smoke & Barrel whiskey and barbecue festival, as well as other events, now has an office in Central School. Saige Mestayer,the marketing and campaign director for Smoke & Barrel, praised the vintage ambiance of the building and highlighted the positive impact of having a dedicated workspace. The nonprofit is currently planning an early childhood education program in collaboration with the United Way of Southwest Louisiana.

The restoration of Central School was a challenging endeavor that required extensive care, as emphasized by Mayor Nic Hunter. Repairing a historic structure like Central School after a disaster is no easy task. The restoration project took nearly three years and cost the city $4.8 million. The city is hopeful to receive reimbursement from FEMA for the restoration expenses. Despite the challenges, the mayor stressed the significance of preserving historic buildings like Central School and the nearby historic city hall, which now hosts art exhibits and events. The Community Foundation of Southwest Louisiana has established a special fund dedicated to the preservation of these historic landmarks.

Lake Charles has faced the dilemma of balancing historic preservation with economic redevelopment. Many historic buildings, such as the Majestic Hotel and the Arcade Theater, have been lost over time, leaving only memories captured in historic photographs. Historian Adley Cormier acknowledged the difficulties posed by recurring hurricanes but commended the city for its commitment to preserving Central School and other historic structures. The mayor expressed gratitude for the community’s embrace of these landmarks, ensuring that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.

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Lake Charles TV Station Set to Rebuild Downtown

Nearly two years after being destroyed by a hurricane, KPLC is set to rebuild, according to this article. In the early morning hours of August 27, 2020, Hurricane Laura made landfall on the southwest shore of Louisiana. At Category 4 strength with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour, Laura was the strongest hurricane to hit that corner of the state since storm records began in 1851. As Laura’s eyewall passed over Lake Charles and its metropolitan area, the storm was still a devastating Category 4. The damage inflicted on homes and businesses was nearly incomprehensible.

One such hard-hit business was the KPLC news station. In a worst-case scenario event, the station’s 400 foot transmission tower snapped in half, causing the top portion to crash down into the station’s broadcast studio, which was housed below, knocking the news station off the air. Station staff had evacuated the studio a mere 12 hours before.

John Ware, KPLC-TV’s general manager, went out to inspect the damage to the station later that morning. “To see the tower sticking through the studio roof into the room that we would have been broadcasting from was absolutely sickening,” said Ware.

Despite the fact that their studio was in ruins, the station and its staff still found ways to get important and desperately sought after information to the people of the Lake Charles area. This included assistant news director and anchor Jillian Corder and a group of KPLC journalists reporting on the ground while their colleagues worked from the WAFBstation in Baton Rouge. Many residents view these journalists’ actions as heroic for never giving up and finding creative ways to show them what things looked like in their neighborhoods and for letting them know when it was safe to return home. “In a lot of stories, you attempt to relate to your subject matter, to your viewer, you try to deliver what you think is important to them,” Corder said. “In the moments after the storm, after Laura, you knew what was important to them — because you were going through it, too.”

The KPLC station has been housed downtown in Lake Charles for its entire 65 year history. A decision had to be made on whether to rebuild in the same location or to move the station elsewhere. Gray Television, KPLC’s parent company, along with KPLC, has spent the last two years creating a plan to move forward. They recently announced their decision to keep the station at its Division Street location. The multi-million dollar project will include expanded television production facilities, two new broadcasting studios, a larger parking lot, and a new building entrance with lots of glass and natural light. “We think it will be a great facelift for the area,” said Ware. “We worked with the city to make sure it reflects the architectural significance of the area.”

The biggest challenge for the rebuild will be the fact that the station will continue to broadcast from the location throughout construction. As a result, the construction will have to be done in phases. But keeping the station downtown is worth this inconvenience, according to mayor Nic Hunter. “We got to a point today where there was a group commitment to come back and reinvest in what has been a historic location and a very important anchor for downtown Lake Charles,” said Hunter. “KPLC has been a trusted source of news and updates in this community since 1954. It’s an important thing when new companies come into Lake Charles; it’s also an important thing when existing companies make the decision to reinvest and retain jobs in Lake Charles.”

Pat Williams Construction, a local company, is leading the project and construction is slated to begin in the first half of August. The building should be completed in about 18 months, weather permitting. “When something’s good for downtown Lake Charles, it’s good for the entire city of Lake Charles.” Mayor Hunter said. “This reinvestment not only affects KPLC, but the bigger picture is the spin-off benefits it has for the surrounding businesses and the surrounding communities.”

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Lake Charles Theatre Bounces Back After Storms

After a particularly rough year enduring Louisiana storm weather, the city of Lake Charles has opened the doors of the famed ACTS theatre to the community, according to this article from The Advocate.

Many of Lake Charles’s cultural structures and institutions had sustained significant damage from the four natural disasters that have hit southwest Louisiana this past year. Despite much of the outside world seeing Lake Charles as a working-class town mostly comprising industrial plants and casinos, the oft-forgotten cultural structures are left behind in the conversation but not in the damages sustained.

The smaller Lake Charles theatres, though not as profitable as the industry that leads the city’s GDP, often bring a sense of community and spirit to the city’s population of roughly 80,000 people. This includes music venues, art galleries, and other performance spaces throughout the city limits for the area’s collection of zydeco musicians.

But as of Fall 2021, the arts are alive again in Lake Charles as a production of a musical, 42nd Street, has premiered in the ACTS Theatre, standing as the first play the former movie house has “put on” in over a year. Mike Ieyoub is one of the lead actors in the production of 42nd Street, and just before a recent rehearsal began for the show, he assessed damages that the theatre had sustained from Hurricane Laura and worried about the likelihood of reopening the theatre to the public. “We looked around and we didn’t think we’d get it reopened,” Ieyoub told The Advocate.

He and Kristen Harrell both play leading roles in 42nd Street, and they both commented on the audience’s excitement for the theatre’s return as well as the cast’s. They attributed the anticipation to the fact that dramatic performances in a theatre are symbolically representative of a return to normalcy for audiences, and they provide an outlet for cast members as well. Harrell said, “for a lot of us who grew up doing it, myself included, it’s like, ‘I can tap again;’ coming back together and just having fun.”

The cultural affairs director for the city of Lake Charles, Louisiana, Matt Young, said the following regarding the resilience of the city and its residents in light of the past years of storms: “living in Lake Charles is kind of tough these days, but I think the more that we’re able to restore our festivals and fairs and open our cultural institutions and attractions, the better chance we’re going to have of keeping our residents, and not just keeping them, but giving them a great quality of life.”

Over the past few years, Lake Charles has put in noticeable efforts to address some of the citizens’ concerns that certain neighborhoods and structures in the city have been neglected for quite some time. These efforts include the creation of the Nellie Lutcher Cultural District in the northern area of the city through the use of tax incentives. This creation of a district named after the famed Lake Charles jazz singer and pianist is an effort to spur new development in this area of the city.

Another effort supported by the city is to construct a new performing arts space, and given that the Lake Charles Little Theatre had sustained heavy storm damage recently, it will soon be demolished. Randy Partin is the former president of this once-operating theatre, as it’s the second-oldest performing group in the state, having established itself in 1926, but due to the scheduled demotion, Partin has aligned his goals with the city’s. He founded the Live Arts Venue Alliance in an effort to lobby for and support the establishment of a new performance space in the city.

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