A fellow member of our knife community needs help

[Rhett Stidham]

One of our own, has suffered great loss as a result of hurricane Katrina. We, the members of this Forum and the Randall Knife Society will see if we can raise some money for Charlie and Mary Dake. Charlie is a Knifemaker’s Guild member and a great knifemaker. A knife is being used to promote this drive to raise money. Please read the following letter and note from Charlie and Mary Dake.

To see promotion rules and how to enter see the thread “Randall Fund Raiser for Charlie Dake “ on the RKS Forum at:
http://www.randallknifesociety.com/ubbchat/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=85&an=0&page=0#85

Best regards,

Rhett Stidham

"I am writing this letter to let you all know that my wife Mary, our son Eric, myself, and our three dogs and two cats all survived Hurricane Katrina. We evacuated our home on Bayou Sauvage in New Orleans on Sunday afternoon before the storm arrived. My son, Eric was working in Panama City, Florida at the time.
We were able to make it to my wife's sister's home in Vicksburg, Michagan after sleeping in our trucks for two nights in Alabama and then, realizing that we were not going to be able to return home for some time, I was able to obtain satellite imagery taken on September 3 that showed an aerial view of our property. Unfortunately the photograph revealed that every structure on the property was destroyed, including our house and my shop. I was able to talk on the phone after a week and a half with my neighbor who did not leave, and he said that as the eyewall of the storm approached our area,it began hailing heavily, and we were hit by a tornado, and that before he was forced to abandon his home and jump into the then chest deep water with his family, as his house began to disintegrate, he saw our house and the other neighbor's house coming apart and flying up into the air.
He and his family spent about eight hours in the water hanging on to a tree across the highway from his home before he was able to swim back to his property and get to one of his boats that was left and get his family out of the tree and onto a forty foot shrimp boat that subsequently ended up in the middle of Chef Menteur Hwy. He was able to contact the Coast Guard on the radio and they were airlifted out by helicopter the next day.
He said that when the water was at its highest, it was up to the bottom power line and that they almost ran out of tree to hold on to and that at that point the area was covered with over twenty feet of water.
We are still staying with my sister-in-law and I am in the process of buying a small travel trailer to go back in (when they open up the highway), and start trying to pick up the pieces of whatever is left. I don't know when I will be able to start making knives again, only that I will when I can.
I hope that any others in the Guild who were in the path of this terrible storm were able to get out safely. My e-mail address is mongreaux@yahoo.com and the phone number where we are staying is 269-649-4512.
I hope this letter eases the minds of anyone who was concerned for our safety.
Charlie and Mary Dake."