Javier Campos returned to his neighborhood for the first time in nearly a month Monday to find the serene little enclave of fishing camps and homes a putrid, mud-caked mess after the historic flooding of the Mississippi River.
"It's too late for praying now," he said, stomping through the sludge.
Like Campos, many residents got their first glimpse Monday of what's left of Cutoff, an unincorporated community on the unprotected side of the river in Mississippi's Tunica County.
Authorities had already used machinery to remove dead deer and propane tanks from roads, but a thick layer of mud coated piles of debris and almost everything else in sight. Some of the houses, most built on stilts on the banks of Tunica Lake, had been flooded nearly to their attics. Only five out of 350 structures didn't flood.
The tally of the damage continues here, but at least a dozen houses are a total loss, and maybe more, with one left laying on its side.
Inspectors let some residents return home over the weekend, but most were seeing the destruction Monday for the first time.
Campos, a 32-year-old handyman, still couldn't quite get to his own home. So he pulled on a pair of gloves and started helping a neighbor salvage what he could.
"It's terrible, man. Everybody needs help," Campos said. "So I'm helping my neighbors, and when I can get back to my house, maybe they will help me."
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