All Rural Health Clinics (Hackberry, Johnson Bayou & Vinton).(Patients will be contacted about rescheduling. West Calcasieu Cameron Hospital closing some clinics and outpatient services at noon Tuesday.Monoclonal Antibody Infusion Clinic postponed Tuesday and Wednesday.Gardner Breast Center at CHRISTUS Ochsner Lake Area Patrick- Patients needing assistance with admitting/registration should enter through the ER. Admitting at CHRISTUS Ochsner Lake Area and CHRISTUS Ochsner St.The following CHRISTUS Ochsner Health Southwestern Louisiana departments and facilities are currently closed:.Louis will hold virtual classes Wednesday. The following schools will be open Wednesday, Sept. Sign up for newsletters emailed to your inbox.Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) - Closures and cancellations due to the threat of flash flooding from Tropical Storm Nicholas. To reach the newsroom or report a typo/correction, click HERE.

And a week before Thanksgiving I went in for a routine screening and I find out I have cancer.' 'So here we are at the end of hurricane season and the holidays are here and I'm thinking I can relax and spend time with family.

The hurricane season refused to relent, delivering another hurricane in early October, and for Ben that was only the beginning of the bad news. It would take a few days for him to get back to Lake Charles and a whole month before KPLC could continue it's operations there after the collapse in the studio. The picture was of the KPLC studio, the broadcasting tower had collapsed and the roof caved in at the very spot where they would have been doing their broadcast.Ī recent homeowner Ben inquired about his house trying to get a hold of neighbors who had an idea if his house was still standing.īen's house would be deemed a total loss, suffering catastrophic damage while Ben was broadcasting news of the storm.

That decision to leave at the last moment would turn out to be divine intervention, as the images emerged the next morning of the storm's devastation a particularly chilling one came through the news room. But it was a decision that had to be made because we were not going to be safe there.' You feel like you're abandoning your town and your audience. Unfolding like a nightmare the team of KPLC was forced to leave the station, evacuating their operation to Baton Rouge in order to continue broadcasting through the storm.Ī decision that Ben said was not made lightly, 'As a meteorologist you don't want to abandon the ship because you feel like the captain leaving at the most critical hour. Instead of watching the story unfold though, Ben would find himself the central character as one of Lake Charles's on air meteorologists responsible for getting as much life-saving information out to the public as possible. Gulf Coast meteorologists had seen the story of Laura before, the story of a storm rapidly intensifying all the way to landfall and bringing along with it catastrophic damage. Perhaps the embodiment of that resiliency though is the meteorologist who helped get them through it, KPLC Meteorologist Ben Terry. In the last year the resiliency of southwest Louisiana has, for good reason, been heralded with stories of communities banding together in the face of Mother Nature's worst.

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