DELCAMBRE — Some normalcy returned to Delcambre Wednesday as schools and some businesses reopened just four days after Hurricane Ike flooded much of the town.

More federal aid arrived, and a National Guard unit set up a drive-through FEMA distribution point in front of Our Lady of the Lake Church. Scores of residents — and reportedly many non-residents — waited several minutes in a line of vehicles that wrapped around all sides of the cemetery to receive boxes of Meals Ready to Eat, bags of ice, bottled water, cleaning supplies and tarps.

Supplies were delivered by the truckload but went quickly.

National Guard troops and Delcambre volunteer firefighters distribute MREs, ice, bottled water, cleaning supplies and tarps to people in cars Wednesday morning in Delcambre. - Jim Mustian / The Daily Iberian Advertisement

Chris Fauntleroy, a carpenter from Delcambre, said he waited 25 minutes to pick up cleaning supplies, but the stack ran out right before it was his turn. A police officer told Fauntleroy, who has lived in a FEMA trailer since Hurricane Rita flooded this town in September 2005, to return a little later as more supplies were en route from Lafayette.

Mayor Carol Broussard helped in the effort Wednesday morning, greeting each vehicle as it pulled forward and asking which commodities would be needed.

“I’ve never seen half of these people before,” Broussard said. “There’s people here from Abbeville to New Orleans.”

Those receiving commodities were not asked to provide identification or proof of residence, Broussard said.

Each person waiting in line had a different story and reason for being there. And dozens of interviews with Delcambre residents have revealed the varying — and sometimes arbitrary — nature of Ike’s wrath.

Precious Teno, who lived the first 10 years of her life in Delcambre before moving to Galveston, Texas, evacuated to her mother’s home in Delcambre just before Ike hit, she said as she waited in line. When it became more likely that Ike would impact Delcambre as well, she said,they fled with family to Lafayette.

Teno said she still has no idea how her home in Galveston fared.

“No one’s been able to get in there and check it out for us,” she said. “We did hear that the apartments all around us had collapsed.”

Teno also said the restaurant where she is employed was “hit pretty hard.”

For the most part, Broussard said the relief effort in Delcambre has run smoothly thus far, despite “a few glitches at the beginning.”

He said a fight broke out Tuesday night as some began cutting a line of people waiting to receive meals from the American Red Cross.

The Red Cross used Delcambre High School as a distribution point Tuesday but had to shift gears as the school reopened Wednesday.

School administrators said the first day back was much smoother than anticipated.

Assistant Principal Kim Messman said four classrooms were affected by floodwaters, and those classes had to be held elsewhere. But she said attendance was “normal” and that only two of about 50 faculty members missed school Wednesday.

Additionally, Messman said all of the students were in uniform Wednesday, an indication their families may have fared better than they did in Rita.

“After Rita there were several children who had lost their uniforms,” she said, adding there was only one report this time of a student whose books were damaged at home.

“When you think about how much water was out there over the weekend and how many people were affected,” she said looking out the window toward Main Street, “then it’s quite an accomplishment that we’re here today.”