| Reflections
from Katrina
By Kevin Shaffstall
Director of Pryor Leadership Studies
and American Humanics
William Jewell College, Liberty,
Missouri
A group of 39 students, faculty
and staff from William Jewell College
traveled to New Orleans over fall
break to assist with hurricane relief
efforts. Students departed October
14 for the |
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five-day
trip, which was sponsored by the college's
Christian Student Ministries and American
Humanics organizations, in partnership
with the American Red Cross and Baptist
Disaster Services. They were headquartered
in Algiers, La. The Jewell group assisted
in residential clean-up efforts aimed
at allowing displaced hurricane victims
to return to their homes.
A surreal moment occurred on our recent
disaster services trip to the Gulf Coast.
One morning as we traveled into downtown
New Orleans off of the badly damaged 10
Highway over Lake Ponchitrain, our radio
was turned up loudly (as college students
like it), and a song came on called "Rock
You Like a Hurricane" by the Scorpions.
As the students started to sing along
we came over a rise in the highway, and
there before us was the New Orleans Superdome.
At that sobering moment, singing didn't
seem quite so appropriate, and we questioned
why the station even chose to play the
song. What we soon realized was that all
of our worlds would be "rocked"
by the devastation we encountered following
Hurricane Katrina.
Having lost my family home to an F-5 tornado
in Andover, Kansas, in 1991 and having
worked disaster relief in other tornados
(including the Liberty tornado of 2003),
as well as various floods and ice storms
over the years, I thought I had seen the
worst. I soon realized that the devastation
left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina
and Rita was the Kansas City tornado of
2003 multiplied by one million. No camera
lens is wide enough to tell the story
and capture the vastness of the devastation.
No reporter has a large enough vocabulary
to describe the scene. The damage and
destruction extends as far as the eye
can see for what seems hundreds of miles.
Seeing firsthand the damage in New Orleans
and the surrounding communities made me
envision the 1983 movie "The Day
After," which was about an atomic
bomb dropped in Kansas City.
The work that our William Jewell College
students and faculty completed for the
residents of New Orleans was called "Mud
Out." This term referred to the process
of clearing out all the contents of family
homes, including the sheet rock and insulation.
At the Red Cross and Baptist Relief Services
headquarters in Slidell, Louisiana, we
would get our "Mud Out" assignments
for the day. We worked in crews of 5-6,
and each day we never knew what we were
going to face. But we quickly figured
out that we were going to be tested physically,
mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.
We were meeting people at the lowest points
of their lives, and we had very few answers
for them. Each person we met had a sad
story to share. These were the elderly,
the families, and the children. For my
crew, each day seemed to get progressively
worse in terms of challenging assignments.
As
we traveled through the city to
find out our "Mud Out"
assignment, we became well-versed
in reading landmarks and asking
questions because most every street
sign was gone. We also learned what
the large red X spray-painted on
houses signified. The top number
in the middle of the X represented
the fire fighter who went through
the house, and the bottom number
in the middle of the X was the number
of bodies found there. The largest
number a member of our crew saw
was a six. |
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On our final day of doing "Mud Out"
work, we met a grandmother named Carolyn
outside of her home. As we introduced
ourselves to Carolyn, who was a server
in a deli, she shared with us how she
and her grandson had been rescued from
her home by a firefighter during the flooding
caused by Hurricane Rita. The house had
severe structural and water damage, including
a large tree through the top of one of
the bedrooms in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina. But Carolyn and her grandson
continued to live there until their life
was rocked for a second time by Rita.
She told us they had not been in their
house since the flood 30 days earlier,
and that they were staying with family
in Mississippi.
When we opened the door to the house,
we encountered a foul stench from mold
and stagnant water that had been left
standing in the home. As we moved through
the dark and dank house wearing respirators
and masks, we saw furniture, beds, carpet,
and walls with mold growing all over them.
We all knew that we didn't have a large
enough crew to take on this task and radioed
for back-up help. But we soon realized
that no help was coming, and if anyone
was going to help out this woman and move
her toward recovery, it was going to be
us.
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We
first opened up all of the windows
in the house and then carried all
of the furniture to the street.
Then we emptied cabinets and closets
of clothes. After furniture was
removed, we began the task of taking
out all of the carpet and hardwood
floors. The cockroaches and maggots
in the kitchen and throughout the
house were large and rampant. With
the carpet removed, we could move
on to pulling all of the sheetrock
and insulation out of the house.
Our goal was to get the house down
to the 2x4 studs so it could dry
out and be ready for a rebuild sometime
in the future. |
As we moved through the house we empathized
with Carolyn, who was struggling with
seeing all of her life's possessions being
carried to the street in one large pile.
She wanted to keep her kitchen cabinets,
but I had to tell her that they must go,
as they were covered in mold and were
a health hazard. We were able to salvage
a few personal items that we helped her
pack up in boxes.
As we were there her insurance agent arrived
and walked through the house with her,
surveying the extensive damage. We heard
him tell her the heart-breaking news that
she had no flood insurance-only property
insurance. Once again we experienced an
overwhelming sense of inadequacy to alleviate
this woman's pain and suffering. As we
continued to work, we grew more tired
from the physical labor. But we developed
a renewed feeling of resolution to make
this house as livable as possible before
we had to load up our vans and make the
15-hour drive home to Liberty. We knew
that whatever condition we left the house
in it was likely to remain that way for
months-if not years-until the rebuild
could begin. So in each room we made sure
to sweep and clean up all of the debris
and sheet rock remnants, realizing that
Carolyn would most likely be living in
the home until it was rebuilt, as opposed
to living in a tent in her yard like so
many other people were.
As
our work day came to an end we reminded
her to spray a bleach-water solution
on all of the studs and floors to
kill the mold and open her home
up during the day to air it out.
Carolyn cried as we all gave her
a hug as we walked out. The only
words I could say to her were "God
Bless You," which somehow seemed
inadequate. But I knew that we had
given her our very best and that
we had totally exceeded what we
thought was possible to achieve
when we started the day. Her house
was now wide |
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open
with light shining all the way through
the walls and studs from the windows in
each room. There was now light in what
had been a dark and dreary home, and that
light represented hope, which we all needed
after this most intense disaster relief
trip.
As we got back in the van for the trip
home, we came to some realizations. We
recognized that we had a moral obligation
to go back and tell others of the incredible
need that exists for workers in New Orleans.
This need will last for years to come.
There are all kinds of needs, but there
is a special place for college students
and young adults who have the physical
stamina and drive to do the kind of back-breaking
work that is so needed. The people of
the Gulf Coast are facing problems that
need a human touch, problems that can't
be solved by heavy machinery and equipment
alone. We also realized that there is
probably not enough lumber or sheetrock
in all of North America to rebuild what
has been lost.
The trip affirmed for us that the American
Red Cross is an amazing organization that
needs all of our support and financial
resources to do the work that they do
so well. The people of New Orleans have
suffered greatly, but the human spirit
is incredibly resilient. Some way, somehow,
they will rebuild and get back on with
their lives, even though it will likely
be years away. As relief workers we felt
incredibly inadequate, yet also empowered
to help solve the problems before us.
In the end we did walk away with a sense
of accomplishment in helping our neighbors
in New Orleans. We had given them all
we had over a period of four days, no
matter how small the impact of our endeavors
might have seemed to us.
