In 1965, when he was 12 years old, Tommy Meric Jr. rode out Hurricane Betsy huddled under the stainless steel staircase in the foyer of his family’s new Lakewood South home with his father, T. Sellers Meric. “It was a very, very solid house,” Tommy Meric said. “My dad designed it, and my uncle, Robert Kuebel, had built it.”

The house emerged relatively unscathed, except for the loss of two large, floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows.

Fast forward 40 years. As Hurricane Katrina approached, Tommy Meric, his wife, and their children had already evacuated their home a block away. Sellers Meric, 77, and his wife, Anne, 76, reluctantly evacuated at the last minute to be with family in Oscar, a small town in Pointe Coupee Parish near False River.

Despite the many accolades Sellers Meric had ga

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