The late September storm packed 100 mph to 120 mph winds that, in addition to causing other damage, toppled more than 1,000 of the inland region's trademark trees, sending them through roofs, onto gravestones and across roads.

The 62,000 residents of the parish might still be waiting for help if it weren't for 140 members of the California Conservation Corps, who returned this week from doing some of the dirtiest work in the cleanup process.

"They told us we did two years of work in two weeks," said Brian Hickox, 24, of Phelan.

Hickox was one of 15 specialized fire crew members from the Inland Empire Center in San Bernardino to assist in the effort.

The crews cleared 380 properties and removed nearly 1,100 trees around the parish and its smaller towns of New Llano, Rosepine, Anacoco, Hornbeck and Simpson.

Thick oaks that had grown deep and wide into the ground were uprooted. And many of the downed trees were waterlogged and heavy.

"When you cut them, they'd be bleeding water," said Adrian Brunet, 19, of Riverside.

The chain saws the crews brought were no match for the task, which Brunet compared to trying to cut through brick.

The very first home the crews encountered, a double-wide trailer, was nearly covered by the limbs of a fallen giant oak. The local public works officials figured it was going to be a tough job for the young Californians, Hickox said.

" `You'll probably be here 'til dinnertime,' " he said they told the crew. "We finished it before lunch."

It's the kind of work that attracted these men and women to the corps in the first place, they said.

The state's outdoor work force development program trains young people, ages 18 to 25, in fire protection and environmental conservation. Most members of the local crew who went to Louisiana are planning careers as firefighters.

This was only the second time in the program's history that corps members were sent out of state, said Scot Schmier, conservation administrator for the Inland Empire center.

"Just in the way people reacted with us tells us we made a difference," said Jacklyn Bowes, 21, of Riverside, the local corps' lone female member. "They were very thankful."

Melvin Haymon, president of the Vernon Parish Police Jury, the equivalent of a county Board of Supervisors, was amazed by their efforts.

"We'd have been cleaning trees for a year if it weren't for them," he said.

Not only was his public-works staff able to return to addressing the normal needs of the parish, but it had no need for the Army Corps of Engineers, which arrived later in the week, ready to assist.

"I more or less told them we really didn't need them," Haymon said.