After twice trying and finally securing food stamps to replace a deep freezer full of spoiled food, Hurricane Gustav victims Lydia Osbourne and her friend Angel Cheramine sat down on a bench outside the Castine Center near Mandeville Wednesday afternoon and lit a victory cigarette.

They had stood in line for seven hours.

“We did it. We finally did it,” Cheramine said. “I though it would be three to four hours. I didn’t think it was going to be an all day thing.”

Pictured are people waiting in lines at the Castine Center in Mandeville on Wednesday. (Staff Photo by Matthew Penix)

Osbourne and Cheramine are one of an average 1,600 south Louisiana residents per day — about 6,000 as of Wednesday to see 35 interviewers — pouring into the Castine Center in hopes of securing free food stamps at one of three centers in south Louisiana to help Hurricane Gustav victims. By Wednesday, 48,014 applications statewide were processed for a total of 78,104 victims to receive the aid, said Ann Williamson, secretary with the Department of Social Services which administers the program.

In Covington, car lines to get into the Castine Center snaked four miles long at times, Osbourne said. On Tuesday, she waited three hours in her car to drive 1/2 mile along Louisiana Highway 190 toward the Castine Center, only be turned away.

Centers throughout south Louisiana had not expected the enormous rush and stopped taking applications about noon, allowing time for those already in line to be processed the same day, said Julie Miller, Castine Center site coordinator for the Department of Social Services.

“It’s like waiting at the doctor’s office,” she said. “You wait 35 minutes for five minutes of your time. It’s very much the same here.”

On Wednesday, about a dozen National Guard troops patrolled the area, a few parking a truck at the entrance and turning people away. A sign said,” Center Closed. For Today.”

Earlier in the day guardsmen handed out Gatorade and water to those standing in line.

“It’s been easy,” Sgt. Katie Guerra, a Guardsman said, as she sat outside the center on a makeshift cooler. “No problems at all.”

Others seemed to want to help too. As Troy Walters and his fiancé Erica Smith from Lacombe stood in line, Department of Social Services employees announced directions from a bullhorn. It didn’t seem to work. The sounds were muffled, Walters said.

Minutes later, he excused himself from the line, Smith holding the couple’s place, and returned with a PA system, a laptop with thousands of songs and a microphone.

Site coordinator Miller and crew used the microphone to call out directions as Walters hooked up his DJ equipment to play tunes for the crowd.

“I haven’t been able to go to work and I wanted to work. This is what I do,” he said, slouched over his computer looking for another rock song to play. “I don’t mind volunteering. I mainly just want to keep people in good spirits while they’re going through the wildness of standing in line. The animosity of it all. I have a big heart to help.”

Leola Baker seconded that sentiment.

As an employee with the state Department of Health and Hospitals, Baker volunteered to be an interviewer on Wednesday. She was briefed five minutes and put to work.

“It’s a warm feeling to help these people,” she said. “Everybody has been so gracious.”

The disaster food stamp program, lasting for 30 days until Sept. 27, is designed to help those who fell on the brink of financial disaster as hotel and gas bills for evacuation mounted and food spoiled when electricity zapped to at least 89,000 people in St. Tammany.

Under a disaster declaration by President Bush, the program offers the same amount of money offered to those already in the program but relaxed it requirements with considerations made for property damage, temporary work loss and loss of food.

For a household of one person who earns a net income of less than $2,079 per month, victims can receive $162 in food stamps. The price increases incrementally, up to $975 for a household of eight, with the size of the household and net income criteria.

The free money seems to have people scrambling to get their hands on it. Gregory Doll of Lacombe expected to wait for hours to get the free debit card, with money placed in the account within 72 hours. Instead, his heart blockage moved him to the front of the line, he said. It’s a much-needed financial boost. Only 30 percent of his heart is working properly and the condition prevents him from working, “which makes life pretty hard,” he said.

“I just want to get what I lost in the storm,” he said, referring to his evacuation costs to Jackson, Miss. and his loss of food.

On Thursday morning, the city of Slidell spokesman, Paul Bartels said Mayor Ben Morris was negotiating with FEMA to set up another food stamp center at the gymnasium in Fritchie Park, but that nothing definite was planned.