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Sixty —one year old Lawrence Puegot of Houston is a disabled military vet who’s seen it all.
“I’ve seen couple of little storms here and there.”
Lawrence gets around in one of those motorized scooters: “Running over everything.”
His power’s been out since the storm, so there’s not much to do.
“I just sit around. I sit at the computer, but without power you can’t play at the computer.”
With no electricity, Lawrence is spending more time outside these days. And with food running low, he decides to head down the street to a local FEMA food and water distribution site.
(sound: car honks) FEMA volunteers: “Come this way.”
Lawrence stops as a group of volunteers pack the basket on his scooter with water and few days worth of food.
“Ok can you make it? Do you get water and ice?”
Lawrence: “I don’t need any ice.”
(sound: scooter breaks) With his basket full Lawrence puts the scooter in full speed and heads home.
(Sound: creak of a door opening) Minutes later, he’s back at the house looking through his bags.
“[I] have beef ravioli with meat sauce, have meat and marinated sauce.”
The food is military style MRE’s which stands for meals ready to eat. Lawrence says the MRE’s weren’t this good when he was in the military.
“When I was in there we had P-38’s. We had to use can openers to open them up. All we had back then was old scrambled eggs and ham and old crackers and dried up cheese.”
Bill Stamps: “You like this better?”
Lawrence: “Oh man if I had this back then, I’d still be in there right now.”
To prove, he tells me to try the bread.
Stamps: “It’s okay.” Lawrence: “It doesn’t taste bad at all”
Next it’s a piping hot sloppy joe he made by just adding water.
Stamps: “That one’s actually pretty good.”
The electricity is still off, so Lawrence figures he’ll head back outside. Some people might complain about their circumstances, but you won’t hear such talk from him. He believes everyone is doing their best to get through this crisis — and so there’s not much he can do.
“Wait for the lights to come back on. That’s all you can do, sit and wait. That’s life man.”
Bill Stamps. KUHF- Houston public radio news.