Well evacuees remain in limbo as repair work continues

Displaced Mowata residents know all too well, pun intended.
Last week’s oil/gas well blowout caused the displacement and relocation of a number of residents citizens who were forced to evacuate the stretch of area south of Eunice along Highway 13.
Mac Atteberry, 66, of Mowata went to the Holiday Inn Express, although he doesn’t feel like a celebrity as the popular hotel chain’s commercials might suggest.
Atteberry said that it’s an inconvenience anytime that a person has to leave their home fairly quickly with minimal provisions. He hoped to be back home by sometime today.
“First of all, we’re just glad that everyone got off of the rig and that they’re safe,” said Atteberry. “We’re glad that they used their safety features. Once they realized that they were losing it...they shut everything down. They have safety features on those rigs.”
The well in question was located on his family’s farm land in Mowata.
“When it happened (late Tuesday afternoon), my wife came in and asked why all of the trucks were parked in a different spot, instead of at the well. I didn’t know...we heard a little noise and I looked outside. The well was just starting to blow and of course there was a lot of mud coming out of the pipe, it was dark and it wasn’t coming out of the derrick. It was coming out of the rigs that have the mud pits and the pumps. So, we got in the truck and went to go see what was happening. All of the crew members had left the rig by this time. They had shut down the well and drove off in their trucks after they shut down the equipment on the rig. The workers moved to another location. And it’s been blowing ever since.”
Atteberry said that he and his wife heard a “kind of a roar” as the mud began to spew forth from the ground. He said that the drilling, which was done by Black Creek Drilling of Columbus, Texas, was at more 9,000 feet down when the blowout occurred.
The well is across the highway from Bubba Frey’s The Mowata Store. Frey said that he was at the a Store when the well blew mud some 40 or 50 feet in the air as the gas began surge from deep in the earth.
On Thursday, Frey arrived at the Sittig Road Fire Station to meet with Louisiana State Police and Acadia Parish Sheriff’s officials for a designated time for displaced residents to be escorted back into the area that he calls home, now considered an area of liability for the Black Creek Drilling and Zachary Exploration. Frey said that it was a bad week for him.
“It’s Mardi Gras weekend, one of my biggest weekends of the year and I’m stuck,” said Frey. “I got a little poultry operation, I can’t go feed it. I got a crawfish pond behind the store, I can’t go see about it. Whether they’re going to let me tend to it this morning, you know, I don’t know.”
Frey said that officials in charge of the well blowout are keeping him in the dark. He wasn’t sure when he would be back to the store for good.
“It’s not that I’m just displaced,” said Frey. “I mean, I’m talking about my livelihood right there. And these people said that they were going to reimburse me, but I can’t wait 6 to 8 months and then go to court ... I got a house note to pay, I got electricity to pay, I got employees that are sitting on their butts at home that depend on their little job. And I got stuff that’s going bad in the cooler as we speak.”
Frey said that Wednesday reports from television news stations indicated that the well was sealed. Frey said that the report was simply inaccurate. He said on Thursday that the gas cloud could still be seen over the Mowata area. Frey also said that he could still hear it from his house.
Frey said that he could realistically take a four-wheeler ATV and “sneak through the back way” to his store to tend to things in the shop. However, Frey, 57, said that he is too old to begin a life of crime.
“It’s stupid for me to have to get caught and go to jail when I want to get to my own stuff,” said Frey. “I just don’t plan to do it. I don’t plan to start now, not to have to go sneak into my own damn place of business.”
If there are unsung heroes in the debacle, one Mowata resident said that it is collectively the Acadia Parish Sheriff’s Office.
“The Sheriff’s department has really stepped up in Acadia Parish,” said Sheila Leonards, a Mowata resident who was also displaced with her family to the Holiday Inn Express.
“The chief deputy sheriff of Acadia Parish came and spoke with us and said how it was them -- the Acadia Parish Sheriff’s Department -- that insisted to bring the people back into Mowata. And there’s not a lot of us, I believe. But Zachary and the drilling people said ‘oh, no’ and the sheriff’s told them ‘oh, yeah we’re bringing our people in for a few hours.' So, we know it’s our people that are really helping us.”