Katrina
Our Boot Camp was held at SouthPointe in Canonsburg, PA. It consisted of four different courses presented by knowledgeable instructors with the help of PowerPoint. Even though it didn’t seem to us that taking these four courses could adequately prepare a person to actually help in a disaster area, this was the preparation they felt was needed. In the end, the preparation plus the orientations on site worked together to give us exactly what we needed.
We got a call from the Red Cross during the afternoon of November 14th. She asked us if we still interested in going working with disaster relief because we were being considered for deployment. We said. Yes, we were still interested. Later that afternoon we got the official call to deploy us to New Orleans. We were to call to make airline reservations and we were to meet for an orientation class the next day in Pittsburgh. With the reservations made, we went shopping for the items that the Red Cross said we would probably need.
We arrived in New Orleans Friday afternoon, November 16, 2005. We called the number, as directed, and took a cab to the Susan Parks Gym which was being used as a shelter. The original shelter we were supposed to go to be in Covington, LA but it was closed by the time we got to Louisiana. We were then taken to the Red Cross headquarters in Metarie, located in the T-Mobile building. The orientation was well done, except that the leader (Scotty) seemed somewhat surprised when I indicated that I could tell the difference between poisonous snakes and nonpoisonous ones with out looking at their eyes. After orientation, we were sent to the St. Matthews United Methodist Church which was being used as a staff shelter. We slept in the "Love Shack", a room with various other couples and sometimes some men. Showers were in tents outside of the building. About a week later we, and a number of other volunteers, were given the opportunity to move to motels. We chose to move because of the hot showers and privacy in the motel room even though we had made some very close friends while in the staff shelter.
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New Orleans. The dark area shown is the area that was flooded for nearly three weeks. Large areas were flooded at first for a shorter time. We worked in the Lakeview section (upper left of the flooded area), Lower Ninth Ward (lower right, just to the right of the canal splitting the flooded area near the middle) and in the lower left hand section of the flooded area. |
On the seventeenth we were sent to warehouse number 5 in Reserve, LA for the orientation for bulk distribution. We had to be at the warehouse by 6:30 in the morning and as it was an hour drive from our shelter, we had to get up earlier then this retired couple was used to doing. The next three days we worked in the warehouse doing different things but mostly cleaning cots that had been brought there from the various shelters that were now closed. The third day the man in charge of our group had a day off so he put me(T) in charge of the group cleaning the cots. This assignment gave us some insight in to the process involved in distributing the various bulk items as well as the variety of work that needed to be done behind the scenes.
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| A House in the Lakeview Section | A house which floated more than 200 feet off its foundation |
We were then given orientation on bulk distribution and sent out to a site located at St. Dominics Church in the Lakeview section, just south of Lake Ponchatrain. This was a middle to upper class neighborhood that had been flooded when a section of the levee broke. The church and the surrounding neighborhood had twelve feet of water in it for a short time, with a level near six to eight feet for about three weeks. We passed out goods to the clients who needed them. The items varied from day to day but some of the more common ones were: water, ice, coolers, brooms, mops, bleach, respirators and milk. One day we apologized to our clients because we had very few items to give to them. A number of them told us that the items were not important compared to talking to us, knowing that they were not forgotten.
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| Setting up at St. Dominics Church in the Lakview Section | A house in the Lakeview Section |
A special part of helping to distribute goods to the clients was the chance to listen to their stories. Some folks were ready to share and others were grieving silently. Some of our clients were housing other people who hadn't been as lucky as they were. I recall one woman who had saved a neighbor's dog was then housing her neighbors in her home. She laughed when she said it was different with about 16 people living with her. She was in an area that had electricity and water again so that her washing machine was used round the clock. A young girl about four years old was telling people, "My house broke." Her mother added that when at store her daughter looked at some toys and said, "I need those. Katrina took my toys."
On Wednesday the 30th of November we were asked if we would be willing to go to the Lower Ninth Ward to pass out Red Cross materials and greet the incoming residents. We were glad to help. The lower Ninth Ward had been badly damaged due to flooding when a levee broke. It is a relatively poor area containing 97% African Americans. Thursday was the first day anyone was allowed into the area to enter their houses and look for any items of interest. Around one thousand people came back to their homes. Many of them were from Texas and other states. For four days they were allowed to go in from 8 AM to 4 PM.
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| Setting up in the Lower Ninth Ward | View of part of the Lower Ninth Ward |
It was a pleasure watching neighbors and friends who hadn’t seen each other since the hurricane greet each other and find out that they were still alive.
One individual said that his son entered his home to find whatever he could. The house was in such bad shape that he couldn’t tell which room was the kitchen, dining room or living room.
One lady was telling us about how the Corps had set explosives next to the east wall, protecting the Lower Ninth Ward, so that if the west levee broke the east wall could be destroyed flooding the Lower Ninth Ward but protecting the other side. Some residents in the local newspapers have also told this story. There appears to be no validity to the story but many of the residents firmly believe it and this influences their thoughts and behavior. If one or both levees broke then one or both of the areas would have been flooded to the level of Lake Ponchatrain. Thus there wouldn’t to be any benefit to destroying one levee to protect a different area.
Near the end of our three week assignment, the Red Cross was about to make a change in the way the goods were distributed. To help faciliate that change, we spent our next to last working day in a section of the city trying to determine what the few people who were there needed and how the Red Cross could best help the area. The last day we (T and others) drove (M and others were co-pilots) the 24’ trucks we had been using to the Red Cross Headquarters in Baton Rouge to exchange them with 15’ trucks. It was determined that the smaller trucks would be easier to work with in the narrow streets of New Orleans where the Red Cross was going to be delivering goods. The new techniques of delivering goods to the people instead of having them come to specific distribution sites seemed to make sense. The residents of New Orleans really appreciated it.
It is our impression that the northern media seems to be giving the idea that the problems are over for the residents effected by Katrina and Rita, Wilma too in Florida. This is far from the truth. Residents of the area will be effected for a long period of time. It seems to us that the Red Cross is doing a good job in Louisiana and Mississippi but the Red Cross is not set up to handle long term disasters. These problems will go on for years. We can't expect the Red Cross to take over the jobs of the federal and local governmental agencies. They will have to step back, even though the disaster still exists.
We are looking forward to going back to New Orleans to help the Red Cross if we are asked to do it again.
Tom and Myrna Hart