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JEFFERSON — When the forecast called for the Mississippi River to crest at around 20 feet at New Orleans, Macon Fry thought about moving over to a neighbor’s higher-sitting house.
“I think the floor of my house is right about 19 feet, four inches,” Fry said during an Associated Press interview.
He spoke as what was then Hurricane Barry was close to making landfall farther west — and as water lapped at the pilings supporting his house. It’s one of about half a dozen on the river side of the Mississippi River at the line between New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. Fresh water marks on those pilings showed that the river was dropping. Fry was preparing to take his furniture off blocks and stay put.
He hadn’t intended to go far.
“I would have been perversely curious to see what 19 or 20 feet looked like,” Fry said. But not so curious that he wasn’t happy when the forecasts changed. “I wasn’t looking forward to spending the rest of the summer mucking out mud and pulling out stuff — or potentially seeing my house float. I don’t think it would have floated, but that’s happened to people that live on the batture.”
Barry was full of surprises. Days before landfall, when it still was just a disturbance with no name in the Gulf of Mexico, it caught many off guard. Thunderstorms associated with it swamped New Orleans with a rush-hour deluge that flooded streets, cars, and some homes and businesses. Four days later, when it was a mere tropical depression moving into Arkansas, it was still pulling up rain bands that flooded homes and roads in parts of southwest Louisiana. As late as Tuesday, what was left of Barry was being blamed for a possible tornado in north Mississippi.
But, Barry, despite its far-flung reach, didn’t live up to its potential as far as disasters go. It did not visit New Orleans with even more flash flooding, nor did it overtop the Mississippi River levees, as had been feared early on. Overall, its rain totals were less than once expected, sparing the Baton Rouge area the major flooding that hit in 2016.
Still, Barry caused more than its share of problems.
Ask Donald Smith, who instead of preparing meals in the days before the storm was using a push broom to guide the water from that surprise flash flood out of his restaurant on Basin Street in New Orleans. He held out hope for business from that weekend’s Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Convention, but the convention concluded early and attendees headed out of town in anticipation of the storm.
Ask people who were busy dealing with overtopped levees in Plaquemines, St. Mary or Terrebonne Parishes, or maybe the volunteers helping crews sandbag a 600-foot stretch of the two-lane highway through the town of Jean Lafitte. “I’m here for my family — trying to save their stuff,” said Vinnie Tortorich.
“My cousin’s house is already under.”
Ask the people who were rescued from flooded homes, sometimes from rooftops.
Or the people who felt they should leave even if they were in areas where evacuations weren’t ordered or suggested. Like Maria Thomas.
Riding out a hurricane means risking prolonged periods without power and without air conditioning. That can exacerbate the symptoms of the multiple sclerosis Thomas was diagnosed with four years ago. “If it gets above 70 degrees I get very sick. I can’t walk and I look like I have had a stroke,” she said.
Thomas, 43, leaves even though she has had some less-than-pleasant evacuation experiences. Like when she, with her wife, fled to her mother-in-law’s house in Mandeville, only to have a tree fall on it. That was the Katrina evacuation of 2005, a storm that marked a certain rite of passage for her as a young adult.
“Prior to Katrina, storms were fun,” says Thomas.
“You got to play with flashlights and eat cold soup. It was an adventure.
“Not long into my adulthood, Katrina happened. It was like everything changed as soon as I became an adult.”
Kevin McGill is an Associated Press reporter in New Orleans.

Jack Pratt, 77, a resident of Morgan City, died Friday, July 19, 2019, at Terrebonne General Hospital in Houma.
Jones Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

LAKE CHARLES (AP) — Jeremy Royer of Lake Charles is a 36-year-old licensed psychotherapist who runs a behavioral health clinic. During his off-hours, though, he’s a ghost hunter who researches and investigates paranormal phenomena. He’s also the author of a new book, “No Man’s Ghosts: Paranormal Investigations in Southwest Louisiana,” which recounts some of his ghost hunting group’s case studies.
The book’s title comes from the fact that much of Southwest Louisiana was once a neutral territory known as No Man’s Land.
As for Royer, he’s had a long fascination with the paranormal.
“I grew up on ‘Ghostbusters,’ ‘Unexplained Mysteries,’ ‘Sightings’ and ‘The X-Files.’ When ‘Ghost Hunters’ came on SyFy in the early 2000s, I knew I wanted to be as close to the paranormal as the team on the show, TAPS, was.”
TAPS is The Atlantic Paranormal Society, and the paranormal investigation group that Royer and his brother Dylan co-founded in 2014 is now a member of the TAPS network.
In “No Man’s Ghosts,” Royer recounts The Old Number 7 Society’s investigations of the following places:
— Ellis Hill on La. 109 just north of Starks where a mysterious, moving glowing orb has been reported for decades.
— The old Hyatt High School in the community of Fields, where the sounds of basketballs bouncing in the empty gym have been reported.
— Big Woods Cemetery at Edgerly.
— The Calcasieu Parish Courthouse.
— A camp at Almadane, La., in Vernon Parish. Owners of the camp were experiencing lots of unexplained activity.
— Old DeRidder Hanging Jail.
In “No Man’s Ghosts,” readers learn that documenting paranormal activity calls for quite a bit of equipment. On a typical investigation, The Old Number 7 Society, or O7S as they call themselves, is likely to show up with the following:
— Static security cams.
—’Roaming’ cams equipped with infrared lights.
— GoPro action cameras.
— Digital audio recorders.
— Environmental detection and research devices (EDI meters). These devices detect changes in temperature and in the electromagnetic field around the device. They also detect motion and vibration.
— K2s (Motion sensors with alarms that detect spikes in electromagnetic energy.)
— A parascope, which reads changes in the air’s static charge.
— An Echovibe, which detects quiet sounds.
— Ghost balls, which are lightweight, hollow plastic balls set out as easily manipulated interactive objects.
“Electronic voice phenomena, or EVP, is a huge part of our investigations. Honestly, at least 90 percent of our documentable evidence comes from our audio,” said Royer. “I think if we’re ever going to understand more about what’s happening with the ‘spiritual’ side of the paranormal, it will be through figuring out this mechanism.”
Often, one or more of the investigators will direct questions at a purported entity on the premises. That’s what happened during the March 2016 investigation at the Calcasieu Parish Courthouse, which Royer covers in the book.
First, a little back story: Toni Jo Henry was the first and only woman ever executed in an electric chair in Louisiana. She was convicted of murder and executed in an electric chair at the Courthouse on Nov. 28, 1942. There are some who say she never really left the building.
The group talked with former Courthouse staff who say they’ve seen free standing shadows on the third floor, smelled period-appropriate perfume from the 1940s, and heard laughter and talking in empty hallways. There are reports of doors closing themselves, an apparition appearing at the top of a flight of stairs and an old filing system in an office which has revolved by itself. The list goes on.
“We directed a number of queries toward Toni Jo herself,” writes Royer in the book.
Outside the office of the Registrar of Voters, one team member asked, “Are you in here, or somewhere else?” The direct response recorded on audio in a female voice was, “I’m here.”
Usually, these disembodied voices are not heard by the investigators at the time they are recorded. They are heard later when the group is playing back what was recorded.
“One of the latest thoughts on electronic voice phenomena is that it’s the result of extremely low-frequency waves that humans can’t hear,” Royer said.
Among the group’s eight investigators, there are two who could be referred to as “sensitive,’ said Royer — meaning they can feel certain things at certain times at investigations.
“I try not to discount anything. At the same time, I tend to favor observable, repeatable results from methods that are mostly understood,” said Royer. “I like to make sure we keep it simple in O7S. I want replayable evidence that everyone can see or hear. I don’t want to be told Uncle Jeb is fine or struggling on the other side, and that he likes what you did with the dining room. Cool story, but record Uncle Jeb’s voice for me. Again, that’s just me — we have plenty of other beliefs among our ranks.”
Speaking of feelings though, Royer said he is often asked if he ever feels frightened while doing these investigations.
“I don’t, really,” he said. “There’s actually a lot of tedium involved. You do occasionally go to places where it feels like you’re being watched, or as if something is moving around in the dark with you. But those feelings are impossible to document, so they just become part of the story of the investigation.”
Still, the group has had an experience or two that would likely make anyone’s spine tingle. There was an historic home in Lake Charles the group investigated early on.
“This house produced an amazing EVP,” said Royer. “It came from a camera that was sitting on a box in the corner of a room. In the cam shot, you see two investigators against the far wall. Dylan and I are sitting on the wall next to the camera. All of a sudden, there’s the voice of an older woman present. It says the name ‘Henry’ twice, dragging it out. It’s crazy, because it sounds like this woman would have to either be right behind or right in front of the device. But when you watch footage, it’s just us.”
After evidence is documented and it is established that “something” is in a place, what then? Does the group just walk away?
Sometimes. Whether or not the group steps in and recommends certain interventions depends on the homeowner, said Royer.
“We have different members of our group who believe in different methods,” he said. “There are Christian faith-based members on the team who believe clergy should be called in to bless or cleanse the house. Another member believes heavily in smudging, which is a common practice using sage.”
And then Royer has his own ideas.
“Because I lean more towards theories regarding paranormal phenomena being based in quantum physics, I’ve been considering implementing a method of ionizing the atmosphere where activity is reported, which is not as complicated as it sounds,” he said.
The Old Number 7 Society conducts paranormal investigations free of charge.
“No Man’s Ghosts: Paranormal Investigations in Southwest Louisiana,” by Jeremy Royer is a 104-page non-fiction, soft cover book released in June.