Lake Charles man's home damaged by hurricanes, now has to cleanup from a tornado

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Louisiana tornado survivor details damage to home

A man who survived a tornado in Lake Charles, Louisiana tells his story.

LAKE CHARLES, LA – A year after hurricanes rocked parts of the South, residents are facing the daunting task, again, of cleaning up from a tornado outbreak.

Ryan Nettles and his wife are both safe after what they said was an emotional day.

A line of severe storms moved through Louisiana Wednesday afternoon, producing tornadoes and damaging winds.

Nettle's neighborhood in Lake Charles was hit hard.

Nettles said his neighbor called while he was at work and told him a tornado had just hit his house. He and his wife waited until the severe storms passed to head home to see the destruction.

Windows were blown out, the roof was torn off, and trees were ripped from the ground. 

"It sucked out my windows and then sucked my front door in, even with the deadbolt locked," Nettles said.

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Lake Charles radar loop

Radar of tornadic thunderstorms moving through the Lake Charles, LA area on Wednesday afternoon.

He pointed next door, showing even more destruction.

"This is my neighbor's house here," Nettles struggled to say. "There's nothing left."

Lake Charles was devastated by floods in May and major Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta in 2020.

"We just got everything back in order. We were just talking about how well the house was doing and looking," Nettles explained. "There were a few last projects to finish up left from the hurricane, and then we got hit. It seemed like destruction like this was only 13 months ago."

Hurricane Laura was the strongest hurricane to strike Southwest Louisiana since records began in 1851. It was a Category 4 hurricane at landfall on August 27, 2020, and caused more than $19 billion in damage.

Hurricane Delta made landfall just 30 miles south of Lake Charles near Creole, Louisiana, about a month after Laura on October 4. It had sustained winds of around 100 mph and was a Category 2 storm.

And in May, an active weather pattern led to copious rainfall amounts and historic flooding in southern Louisiana. More than 15 inches of rain fell, forcing Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards to declare a state of emergency after severe flooding.

Mother Nature isn't stopping Nettles, though. 

"We'll go again at it," he said.

The National Weather Service plans to conduct damage surveys of the storms over the next few days.