“I don’t even know if I want to start over again,” said Joe Bailey’s neighbor.

He and fiancé Thomasine Oliver had just purchased new couches, which needed to be replaced after Rita.

“Now they’re not even worth a flip,” he said.

Craig Melancon said he doesn’t even know how to spell Ike.

That’s his joke about the time from when he lost power until weeks later — he hasn’t monitored news coverage.

Melancon is general manager of Broussard’s Mortuaries. He lives on Sara Jane Road’s East Port Neches Avenue side and didn’t suffer damage, like those on down the Groves side, he said.

“The water was four feet from getting over the road,” he said he heard. “A neighbor has a pond. He said he could drive a boat from his pond to Lake Charles without ever stopping.”

He spent Ike night at the Silsbee mortuary. Roger Hensley, Brent Aimsworth and Joe Raiborn, Broussard’s staffers, spent it at the Nederland Broussard’s on 12th Street. That site got “a little water leak on the second floor,” Melancon said.

“We felt in Hardin County just the same winds we felt over here,” he said. “On Saturday morning we cleaned up (in Nederland). Other than losing power, we were really nice and lucky and fortunate.”

Doug Anderson said he was knocking on wood as he pressure washed love bugs off the red truck he used to evacuate his Port Neches home. He got help from is son, Trent.

Legendary Sara Jane Road is a hot spot for ghost stories during Halloween, but this September Anderson was happy to find it calm.

He pointed out neighbors’ homes between to lake areas and said he’d heard there was very little damage.

Knock on wood,” he said.

Contact this reporter at ddoiron@panews.com.