HOUMA, La. (BRPROUD) – It’s now been over a week since Hurricane Ida hit parts of Louisiana, and Terrebonne Parish is still without power, water, and enough helping hands.

Those on the ground said the recovery in Terrebonne Parish is incremental. The Terrebonne Parish Office of Homeland Security PIO Mart Black said there’s a little bit more power today with some subdivisions starting to turn on the lights.

There are more resources and gas being brought in as well but there’s still a great need. The biggest push is to get supplies to people who are in the smaller towns or have no transportation.

“We’ve been down through every bayou down here so far and dropped off supplies and it’s really bad. I don’t think people realize how bad it is in these low-lying bayou regions,” President of Hatch Grant Association Noah Lirette said.

As crews work to clear roads and begin to clear away the debris, areas around Houma are described as living in a “primitive state.” Parish leaders said many are just trying to survive.

“People are sleeping in a tent on what their house used to be or using some of the rubble to build their own little shelter right now,” Rep. Tanner Magee said. “That’s kind of the bare survival people are living in.”

While more help is trickling in there are not enough places to house linemen and volunteers. Some of the temporary shelters have been converted to places for them to stay. Despite the lack of space, more help is needed as the hot summer continues and people grow frustrated not knowing when help is coming.

The Bayou Terrebonne Distillers turned their business into a free store to get inner-city people food and water since the POD locations were too spread out for some to get life-saving MREs, water, and toiletries.

“We have a lot of low-income individuals who may not have transportation to get to those POD locations so what Noah and his group have done here is so wonderful because it’s centrally located,” said Terrebonne Parish Councilmember Jessica Domangue.

Neighbors are helping neighbors and they remain hopeful there will be light after the darkness in Houma.

“What we’ve been telling everybody is… an old Cajun saying, ‘don’t drop the potato,’ but it means never give up,” Lirette said.

Parish leaders said there are many discussions already going on about how to prevent this level of devastation in the future and it will definitely be something discussed for years to come. Stay tuned to BRProud.com for more stories on recovery in Terrebonne Parish.