When Cameron Parish Sheriff’s Deputies saw a 3-year-old boy walking along the side of the road near Long Beach on Sunday, they knew something was wrong.
The boy’s discovery brought them to the scene of tragedy, the sheriff said: A mother and her two daughters had drowned just off a beach. Her nine-year-old son was rescued from the rocks.
It appears the mother went into the water to save her children, Sheriff Ron Johnson said.
Samantha Alexander, 28, of Ethel, Mississippi, took her four children to the beach on Sunday. Her husband works for a liquefied natural gas facility in the area, the sheriff said.
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An unfrequented beach, high winds and a series of large rocks not far from shore may all have contributed to the deaths.
“You have waves hitting the rocks off the gulf and that energy goes back,” Johnson said.
The bodies of the mother and her daughters, ages 7 and 8, were found on the rocks, about 100 feet apart on the Gulf-facing side of the rocks, Johnson said. The 9-year-old boy was able to wave to officers from his perch on the rocks.
“These rocks are very difficult to climb, they’re covered in algae, and they’re slippery,” Johnson said. “The deputies had to climb with their hands and feet.”
The boy spent a short time in the hospital and is now back home.
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Johnson said there are several beaches in Cameron Parish, and some of them are very popular with visitors – like Holly Beach, which can have a few thousand people on weekends.
But Long Beach is “very, very sparsely populated,” Johnson said. “There are very few camps there and not a lot of parking.”
“I don’t blame anyone,” he said, “but as a sheriff, I wouldn’t want someone to go where other people can’t see you.”
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The Cameron Township Sheriff’s Office was joined on Sunday by the Calcasieu Township Sheriff’s Office, the Johnson Bayou Fire Department, Cameron Township Ambulance District No. 2 and the U.S. Coast Guard.
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