BATON ROUGE - A generator was stolen from the carport of a Park Forest home late Tuesday night. The homeowners had fixed it up in preparation for Hurricane Laura.

Having flooded in 2016, Charles and Sheila Papenburg were prepared for anything Hurricane Laura brought their way. They elevated their furniture, secured their property, and their generator was chained up on a trailer in their carport. When they went to hook it up to their house Wednesday, the generator was gone.

Surveillance footage told the story. Someone took it from the carport around 11:30 Tuesday night.

"He came to the side of the trailer, reached over and cut the lock," said Charles. "He reached over and was very slow, moving the chain so it wouldn't make noise."

The man in the surveillance footage cut the lock with a bolt cutter and lifted the generator off the trailer and wheeled it to his vehicle. An hour later he came back to get a cable and a five-gallon gas can but left behind the cut lock and chain. A few hours before the generator was taken, a car can be seen on surveillance footage passing the house a handful of times.

The Papenburg's can't believe this happened, especially since they had secured it and a surveillance camera was in plain view in the carport.
"It must have been worth it for him," said Charles.

Thankfully, the Papenburg's never lost power and didn't need to use the generator. They've filed a report with Baton Rouge Police.