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LAKE CHARLES, LA. — Every weekday morning, Lisa Morgan wakes up at 3:45 a.m. at her cousin’s house in Lafayette, Louisiana, where she has been staying since Hurricanes Laura and Delta dealt a double blow to her Lake Charles home. The first storm tore a hole in the roof. “You could look up and see the sky,” she said. Mold started to grow on the walls, and then the second storm let more water in.
This story also appeared in Southerly
She drives over an hour each way to teach world history at LaGrange High School in Lake Charles. Her temperature is taken when she arrives, and then she heads to her classroom. She turns on gospel music — a ritual she’s had since she began teaching 28 years ago — and sanitizes all surfaces. When her first class comes through the door, Morgan takes their temperatures and seats them at numbered desks that will allow for easy contact-tracing if a student contracts Covid-19.