OSCAR — One month ago as Hurricane Gustav was barreling toward his home, Buddy Littell, 82, prepared himself for the worst.

Littell was one of just a handful of residents in Oscar, south of New Roads along False River, an oxbow lake, who decided to stay and ride out the storm. When it became apparent his area would receive the brunt of the storm, it was too late for any of his family members to come get him. 

But luckily for Littell, two New Iberia men — a doctor and a dentist who own lake houses on his street — were already on their way to help. Littell credits Kennell P. Brown, a local dentist, and David A. Rinaldi, an oncologist at Louisiana Oncologist Associates on Main Street, with helping him make it through the better part of four days as he was trapped in his neighborhood.

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“I had everything I needed because of them,” Littell said. “They were really a life-saver.”

Littell said Brown and Rinaldi arrived just before the storm with boxes of supplies, food, water and even butane. They gave him so much, in fact, that he had enough left over to give to two other families in need.

“The main thing was just the kindness,” Littell said. “It became contagious.”

When his neighbors aren’t home,  Littell looks after things for them. Brown said Littell is known to locals as “the mayor of Oscar.”

Littell keeps a keyboard with about 12 keys to some of the homes, in case he needs to let someone in to do some maintenance or check on something.

“If I needed to find somebody to do something for me, Buddy was the guy,” Brown said, “so when he needed some help, I was more than happy to do it.”

But while Littell knows many of his neighbors well, he says he had only spoken to Brown a few times.

“I know him, but we don’t play golf together or anything,” Littell said. “To see that man come down here with his pick-up full was pretty amazing.”

Brown agreed most of their dealings were over the telephone, but he added the two were getting to know each other a little better since the storm.

Littell says he doesn’t want to imagine what those four days would have been like without the supplies. He said his street had been closed off by National Guard after a tree fell and blocked the road.

He had no electricity and the running water was on and off. His only lifeline, a cell phone, had to be charged in his truck.

While Littell has ridden out at least three storms in Oscar, he said this one “was by far the worst.”

“The place was rocking,” he said. “Tops of roofs were coming off, curtains were blowing, transformers were sparking.”

Littell tried to leave his home briefly when a plank flew across the road and cracked his vehicle’s windshield.

After the storm let up, Brown appeared again with bread, eggs, Vienna sausages and pork and beans.

Since the storm, Littell says he’s had a hard time escaping similar deluges. During a telephone interview for this article, he was stranded on the side of the road outside of Gulf Shores, Ala., during a blinding rainstorm.

“They seem to follow me,” he said with a laugh.

He was on his way to an annual vacation weekend with his family that was postponed due to the storms. That family includes seven children, 15 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

In any case, Littell says he will be forever indebted to the men who offered their unsolicited help and may have saved his life.

“I now believe in my guardian angel,” he said. “You realize it isn’t a bad world we’re living in. In the end, things are ultimately going to work out.”