I'm
going to give you a little background on Hurricane Katrina.
On
August 29th, 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit the United States. Despite the news reports, New Orleans was not
the only place impacted by Katrina.
Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas all sustained damage
from the hurricane. In fact, the
affected area is the size of Great Britain.
1300
people died from Hurricane Katrina and 600 are missing. 93 of the deceased are still unidentified.
I
had been watching the news about Katrina when I saw the flooding in New
Orleans. I just couldn't watch any more.
I asked at a church meeting if anyone wanted to go with me to
Mississippi and 3 women responded. On
October 31st I left with those three women and another from New York
City. We called ourselves Presbyterian Southern Comfort because it was the only
name I could think of. Apparently God
liked the name because he gave it to many different groups. In Syracuse there is an Operation
Southern Comfort that takes high school kids to New Orleans. And I've heard of at least two other groups
called that. It really doesn't matter
what we call ourselves. The important
thing is that we were called to go.
We
spent 8 days in D'Iberville, Mississippi living in summer tents on a baseball
field. We ate dinner at a Red Cross feeding
station across town. We made breakfast and sandwiches for lunch at a concession
stand that was overrun by roaches. We
showered at a gym in the next town. Survivors of the storm stopped by every day
and asked if they too could live in one of the tents because that was so much
better than what they had.
Between
50 to 60% of D'Iberville, Mississippi had been destroyed. The remaining
buildings were mostly covered in blue tarps.
There were no street lights, traffic lights, or stop signs. There was
rubble everywhere. Homes were
demolished first by the hurricane, then by the four tornadoes that were spun
off and then the storm surge that was between 20 and 40 feet deep, depending on
where you were standing. When the storm
surge arrived it came in quickly. It lasted
for 6-7 hours and then retreated taking with it anything in its way. What remained was coated with slimy,
contaminated muck. The school was
demolished along with the public buildings, the banks, the jail, the library,
and the gas stations.
PDA
is Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. In
D'Iberville PDA set up a tent village that could accommodate 100 volunteers. They provided the sleeping tents, meeting
tents, tables, chairs, tools, gloves, masks, cots, blankets, port-a-potties,
bio-hazard suits and a site manager. It was the first volunteer tent village on
American soil. They didn't know how to
do one so they asked for help from the Norwegian Government who sent experts to
tell them how to set up and manage a tent village. Before the year was out, 5 more tent villages
were either planned or established. Some
were on public ground, some were on church grounds. They all were run by volunteers for volunteers.
Since
then the camps have evolved into fairly comfortable camps. Sometimes it is too cold in the tents and the
heaters don't work. Sometimes a camp is
evacuated because of a threatened storm.
But largely they are safe and meet minimal needs. Showers are available as well as a washer and
dryer and there's a mess tent with real food albeit not fancy food. Trust me, there will be no shrimp or Veal Parmesan
at the camps.
The
rules have been the same from the beginning.
Help is given to those who ask.
There is no distinction made for the religion, if any, of the
requester. We will work on only one
house per family. If they owned multiple
houses, they'll only receive help for one.
We do as much as we can do within our limitations. If a bricklayer is needed, then a house may
wait until a bricklayer volunteers.
Likewise for electricians, plumbers, roofers, and carpenters.
All
the monies used for the houses and the camps have come through the Presbyterian
Church or volunteers. You will pay a
nominal amount at the camp for food. The
tents, supplies, tools, electricity, and everything else has been donated.
At
first the camps were used just by Presbyterians. Then they were opened to mixed groups. Now they are open to a variety of
groups. They have had Jewish groups,
college groups like Syracuse University who took 50 kids down on break, and
folks from foreign countries like Mexico, Malaysia and Denmark.
There
was no Presbyterian Church in D'Iberville. There were no surviving churches
in D'Iberville. PDA was the only
organized volunteer group in town. There
were and still are other groups in other towns... Catholic Relief, Islamic
Relief, Jewish Relief, Lutherans, Mennonites, Methodists, Baptists, Church
World Service, Hand and Feet Ministries...and more. It seems that each group took a different
town so there was more coverage.
You
know those Church World Service school kits we all put together? School
kits…a canvas bag with paper, pen, and a few other things. On the first trip I handed
those kits out in the pouring rain. Two women held a poncho over my head and
the inventory and we passed out school kits to children and the survivors. The
school had been demolished. Homes were
gone. People didn't even have a pencil and paper. How do you plan for your
recovery if you don't even have a piece of paper? So we handled out school kits to adults and
children.
Some
people handed out food. There wasn't any food to give away on some days. Some businesses had shipped pallets of food
to the survivors. But it was a
hodge-podge and sometimes the food was already beyond the expiration date. But car loads of people drove from all over
the county to bring food and blankets and baby food and bottled water and
toilet paper and everything else. Yes
…we know the Red Cross said not to do it.
Thank God no one listened. I was standing there telling a family of 6
that I only had one can of soup to give them when a car drove up filled with
canned goods and can openers.
We
all did "spiritual accompaniment" which means that we listened to a
lot of stories and gave a lot of hugs. You
also will do that. People need to tell
their stories so they can move on.
On
that first trip we also did mucking out…which meant throwing away everything a
person owns and stripping the house down to the concrete floor and the
studs. Then the house can be sprayed
with bleach to kill the mold. After
several applications of bleach, the rebuilding can begin.
After
the first trip there was another one.
That time we went to Gautier, Mississippi. Again, the work was mostly mucking out with
some people installing wallboard and mudding seams.
There
have been several trips since then. We've
worked in various places on the Gulf and in New Orleans. We've installed doors, floors, and
baseboards. Many of the participants have been hooked so they go on repeat
trips. Many people in this room have
been their 2, 3, or more times.
My
minister uses a benediction that says…may God take your lips and speak through
them. May God take your hands and work
through them. May God take your hearts
and set it afire. You are God's hands
and feet and lips. It is an awesome responsibility
and privilege. Those of you who have been there have already been set afire. Those
of you who are going for the first time will be overwhelmed…both with the needs
of the people and the love you will experience.
Mississippi
had $125 billion in damages. There were
65,000 homes that had major damage. After
the storm, some people slept in tool sheds.
Others slept in their moldy houses. The government brought in FEMA
trailers. These were not new FEMA
trailers. Many had been recycled from
Florida where they had been used for the prior major disaster. Some were leaking and some were just
inappropriate. I saw them bring a
one-bedroom FEMA trailer for an elderly woman and her 45-year old mentally
retarded son. She said she'd sleep on
the couch…she was just so happy to have a place to live. 17,000 Mississippians
still remain in FEMA trailers. Many people are now showing the affects of
living in FEMA trailers as the high levels of formaldehyde has been discovered
in them.
4,500
Katrina cottages have been delivered in Mississippi. They are mobile homes designed to withstand
winds up to 150 mph. But they will not withstand a flood.
That
leaves 43,500 families in Mississippi that have found another way to survive.
Most have not moved into new apartments.
The new ones are running at $1,000 a month for a one bedroom apt. Many
of the Mississippians were on the lowest end of the economic scale being
unemployed, underemployed or on social security. Some are living in those moldy
houses.
Let
me tell you about just one person who survived that storm.
Miss
Lilly is a lady in her mid 80's. She was
asleep on her bed when the storm surge arrived.
She didn't think it would come into her house…she is quite a ways from
the water. She owned an old black
dog. It was fat, lame, and covered with
tumors. Her dog kept nudging her…pushing
her toward the center of the bed. When
she realized the bed was floating she helped her dog get on the bed and they
floated up to the ceiling. She floated
there for 6 to 7 hours.
The
following day her nephew came and rescued her with a boat…not a car, but a
boat.
Miss
Lilly now lives in that house with her older sister who has heart problems. The volunteers had stripped everything from
two rooms. It was down to the concrete
floor. They had one hot plate, 2 beds,
and her sister's oxygen canister in the bedroom. In the larger room they had a refrigerator,
stove, washer and dryer. The rest of the
house was uninhabitable.
Miss
Lilly said she was never afraid. God
told her she'd be okay. Her sister said
the same thing. Although they miss all
their belongings, Miss Lilly said she is most grateful for all her new friends.
Let's
talk about New Orleans. New Orleans was impacted most by the flooding that
occurred when the levees broke. But they
also experienced damage from the hurricane itself…devastating winds, rain
damage, lost roofs. We worked on a house
in the Lower 9th Ward. The family across the street lived in a FEMA
trailer at night and in their house during the day. The house looked ok from outside. Inside, they didn't have a floor.
There
are many people ready to say that you are working on the wrong house in the
wrong neighborhood or for the wrong family. I've read reports that say don't
work on that house. Come to my
neighborhood where the real victims are.
The truth is that there are more victims than volunteers.
St.
Augustine said that you cannot do good for all.
So you should do good for those who by accidents of time, place, or
circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.
In
New Orleans there are currently 80,000 vacant dwellings. The homeless population has doubled. It is unknown what has happened to the remainder. Many have moved out of state to wherever they
evacuated.
I
have some statistics from last March.
·
300,000
homes were destroyed· Rents have double and even tripled.
· 70,000 families in New Orleans are living in FEMA trailers and the trailers have only 240 square feet.
· 25% of the displaced people have disabilities. Only 1% of the FEMA trailers are accessible.
· 3/4 of the public housing is being demolished and will not be replaced.
· Children are on waiting lists to get into schools.
· ¾ of the physicians are gone.
· Only 17% of the pre-Katrina buses are in operation.
· Only 30% of the day care centers have reopened.
· 44 million cubic yards of debris have been created. That's enough to line up dump trucks end-to-end across the US 4 times.
· The new land fills are in residential areas.
In summary, the federal agencies are not rebuilding Mississippi. The faith based organizations are. That's you. You are the hope of the Gulf.
