Nancy, her husband Wayne, younger daughter Meridith, and Mary
( 18
Left to Right, Holly Donnelly with her family: son, Travis Donnelly with his wife Vita; Holly Donnelly; daughter, Emily Donnelly; Donnelly’s husband, Dean; son, Dustin Donnelly with his wife, Abby.
Holly Donnelly: “There are so many stories and each person had so much to deal with on a personal level as well as get back to work and earn a living for your family. You cried a lot and laughed when you could. You were not alone with what you were dealing with.”
company temporarily relocating to a different warehouse facility. Te move was made possible when another company sent trucks, equipment and drivers to help the Arabi Sling and Rigging as they recovered from the disaster. As Guy recalls “We tried to set things up so we could at least function - even at a low level.” What followed was months of hard work to make homes
livable and make the company vital again. In addition to the water and mud, the rebuilding process involved a jungle of red tape and exacerbating creditors and insurance companies that Guy describes simply as a nightmare. “I would be on the phone daily. I was like ‘Can you understand the situation? Have you watched the TV?’” However, along the way, joyous discoveries buoyed spirits and gave the entire family hope that all had not been lost to the storm. “My little girl had made a paper sign that says ‘God protects his people,’” remembers Guy through another surge of emotions. “Tat paper was miraculously still there right where we left it.” Donnelly was convinced that the pictures her daughter had grabbed before the evacuation were the only keepsakes she would still have. “Everybody has stories of weird things that happened,” she recalls. “I had this cabinet that all the pictures of my babies were in. Because it was so well made it floated! Tere was stuff in that cabinet that was still dry!”
MAY-JUNE 2011 WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE Nancy Guy and her family were eventually able to buy
a new home and Holly Donnelly’s recently married son is living in their re-built house while her aunt and mother are still living with her at the place they bought after returning for the clean up. Arabi Sling & Rigging is back in business in the same location where Louis H. Flores Jr. and Maxine Flores had achieved some of the company’s greatest successes.
A visit to the company’s web site finds Arabi’ to be a
diverse supplier, offering a wide variety of slings, nets, tiedowns and wire rope as well as specialty equipment for marine projects. Among recent clients, the company provided support for the movie Te Curious Case of Benjamin Button, an Academy Award winning film that was shot in New Orleans. Te movie ends with the rising waters Hurricane Katrina, but, for the family of Louis H. Flores Jr. and the company he founded, life goes on. “You just keep trying,” offers Guy. “You live somewhere your whole life and you know everyone around you and everything around you. You’re established somewhere and then someone pulls the rug out from under you.” Asked when she first felt that things were back to normal, she laughed saying “We’re still trying to get there. It’s like we started all over again.” y
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