Berwick grad returns as evacuee

When Renee Fontenot walked into the gym Tuesday, she saw a familiar sight of girls practicing for the upcoming volleyball season.
The interactions. The sounds. The balls banging against the floor.
While it was a welcome sight, it was much different, too, because instead of working with her team at Sam Houston High School in Moss Bluff, Renee was at Berwick High School to speak to the Berwick squad Tuesday.
While things are normal in Berwick, about 140 miles to the west in Calcasieu Parish, the sounds of volleyballs and the sights of student-athletes enjoying themselves on the court have been replaced by the sights and sounds of debris cleanup as southwest Louisiana continues its recovery from Hurricane Laura. The storm devastated the area and left the start date for school, much less volleyball season, in limbo.
“It was nice to walk in a gym and hear the sounds of kids yesterday,” Renee said Wednesday.
Fontenot, who is the former Renee Tholen, is a 1987 Berwick High graduate who, after playing volleyball at McNeese State University in nearby Lake Charles, has spent the last 30 years at Sam Houston in Moss Bluff, which is north of Lake Charles. The first year she was an assistant volleyball coach, and for the last 29 years, she has served as head coach. She is on the faculty as a health and physical education teacher, too.
She has experienced hurricanes that have impacted southwest Louisiana such as Rita and Ike, but Laura has been much worse.
On top of the hurricane, the area was preparing for the start of school, which was set to begin this past Monday. Monday also was the day the Louisiana High School Athletic Association announced that volleyball teams could begin their seasons on Sept. 8.
Instead of worrying about volleyball at the moment, though, Renee is trying to clean up her 1.25 acres of property where 14 trees fell, including one in her daughter Abby’s bedroom.
“They’re everywhere,” she said of the trees.
While Renee and her daughters Madison and Abby evacuated to Berwick to stay with family prior to the storm, her husband Anthony and their son Ty stayed at the family home in Moss Bluff.
“I could not convince them to evacuate,” she said.
Although thoughts began to emerge as the storm intensified to a near Category 5 about evacuating Moss Bluff, it was simply too late by that time, and father and son had to ride out the storm at the house.
While they were in contact with Renee and their other family members in Berwick throughout the storm via cell phone as well as a walkie-talkie app, it still was a long night.
As Laura’s first eye wall came through the area, a tree crashed into the house about 1:40 a.m., forcing Anthony and Ty to move into an interior room.
As they rode out the storm, they could hear trees, lassoed by the wind, smashed to the ground, just hoping it didn’t strike the area where they were.
There were chunks of time where the family members didn’t hear from each other, too.
But fortunately, Anthony and Ty made it through the storm unscathed, and Moss Bluff missed the second eye wall, too.
“If we’d have gotten the second, it would have been far worse,” Renee said.
When Anthony and Ty emerged from their house, they found downed trees and power lines everywhere.
Anthony and Ty stayed at the house for about three days, trying to do work, before Anthony joined the family in Berwick, while Ty went to his home in Houston.
The area they left behind is uninhabitable right now, Renee said, with no water service or electricity. The tree remains in her home, which is beginning to mold.
“We have a generator,” she said. “It doesn’t matter, and you couldn’t find gas.”
Renee said 97% of Calcasieu Parish School Board property suffered “extensive” damage.
As for volleyball, all of Renee’s players are safe. They currently are scattered throughout the South with family from Texas to Florida and as far north as Atlanta.
The team, like the rest of those in Louisiana, already had been trying to prepare for a potential start date with precautions from COVID-19 prior to the hurricane.
COVID and a hurricane together have made things much more difficult than drawing on her experience in how they responded with volleyball after Rita.
“I think it’s more than you can mentally handle because of COVID,” Renee said
This season was shaping up to be a promising one for Sam Houston. The team won the district title last year in their first season in the state’s highest classification, they had five players who were seeking to play collegiate volleyball on various levels, too.
“I was losing two starters, and (it) was highly competitive to get into the lineup,” Renee said.
While things are bleak, she still is hoping that they can still have a season.
In the meantime, she said the volleyball community has been helpful as district foes have offered her anything they can, while she has access to courts through her club volleyball connections.
She has received help locally from Berwick High School, who is collecting supplies for Sam Houston. Berwick High volleyball coach Lianne Seumanu, who was looking for a southwest Louisiana school to help, contacted Danielle Clayton Courtney, a Patterson High alum. Courtney, who used to coach with Renee, put Seumanu in contact with the Sam Houston coach.
Anyone interested in donating to help the Sam Houston community should contact any Berwick volleyball player or coach.
Seumanu said that Berwick players have “adopted” Sam Houston players and will wear strings of Sam Houston’s colors — purple and gold — on their shoes for practice and games.
“They’re going to be with us the whole season,” Seumanu said.