I promised a blog about Hurricane Katrina and my experience working with evacuees from New Orleans.
This is a writeup that I submitted to our Community Relations department at IBM back in September 2005. They asked that anyone who was involved with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts to share their stories. So here goes:
I'm not sure where to begin. There are so many facets to this experience that it's impossible to put it into an e-mail, but I'll try to share at least a taste of my volunteer experience. When the horror was unfolding on TV in New Orleans, I felt a deep sense of hopelessness and frustration at the situation. As soon as I heard that some of the evacuees were coming to Austin, I called the Red Cross and Hill Country Community Ministries to get on some sort of volunteer list. After a couple of agonizing days not hearing anything, I was finally asked to volunteer at the Austin Convention Center over Labor Day weekend. At the time, there were about 4000 evacuees at the convention center, most of whom had been there less than 24 hours. As I walked through the first big room, I was almost overcome with emotion and had to blink back my tears. There were rows and rows and more rows of cots full of people who had lost everything and who were still disoriented at that point. I felt like I was imposing in a way. I felt like a deer in the headlights. It was surreal, to say the least.
Thankfully, the first evacuee that I met was Gertrude Clark, age 84. She was so warm and gracious that I was at ease from that point on. For the next three weeks, I volunteered at the shelter after work and on weekends. My daughter (a student at UT) was able to volunteer with me a few times. Mostly what we did was walk through our assigned areas and meet the needs of the people. Some of the needs included getting more blankets, helping get their medications from the pharmacy, playing with the children, or just be a listening ear. Each time I went, I made a point to visit with Gertrude. It wasn't until just a few days ago that I realized she wasn't calling me by my name--she was calling me "Miracle."
The entire setup was awesome. There was a big cafeteria where hot meals were served three times every day. Snacks and drinks were available 24/7. There was a schedule for taking showers. There was a supply area where evacuees could fill out a form and get the items they needed, such as shampoo, backpacks, extra pillowcases, etc. A children's play area and library were set up, as well as a place where clothing was sorted by size. There was a CVS pharmacy inside that was open 24/7 so we could get urgent medications to the folks who needed it. There was even a free hair salon! One of the highlights for the evacuees (and for the volunteers!) was a fish fry, a fantastic band that played Motown, and a couple of Austin celebrities named Matthew and Sandra. :-) (For out-of-towners, these were Matthew McConoughey and Sandra Bullock.)
At one point, the city and the Red Cross stopped taking in-kind donations because of the overwhelming response. However, there were several larger-sized people inside the shelter that still needed clothing. I sent an e-mail out to my church, and within two days, I had all the large clothing that I had asked for. Also, I collected bandanas from co-workers to take to the shelter because they were such a hot commodity!
It was amazing to observe the resilience of these people. Most had been through a living hell--stuck in the Superdome for five days, stuck in the New Orleans convention center, rescued from the rooftops by helicopter, spending days and nights on the overpasses, etc. Several people were senior citizens, grandmothers, great-grandmothers. There was also a large number of young mothers with several children, even infants. For the first few days, a lot of people (young and old) needed wheelchairs due to the injuries they received while wading through the murcky water or standing in lines, or from plain exhaustion. The biggest thing that struck me was their positive attitudes, their expression of gratitude toward the people of Texas, and their faith in God that everything would be okay. The children were happy, even as the days dragged into weeks. Some of them were quite spoiled with all the toys, clothes, and stuffed animals that were donated! The young boys loved to race in the wheelchairs that weren't being used.
While volunteering, I met so many good people from New Orleans--Gertrude, Mama Rose, Janet, Miss Alice, Alcide, little Jesse, little Derek, baby Isaiah, and many others. I am still keeping in touch with several of them now that the shelter is closed, and with help from church friends, I've been able to get household items delivered to their apartments here in Austin. It's my hope that I can write Gertrude's biography over the next year. Most of the people that I talked to are not planning to return to New Orleans. They love Austin. Even though they have lost so much, many of them see this as an opportunity. One man named Duncan put it this way, "If I would have known about all the opportunities out here, I would have left long ago."
I just wanted to pass along their gratitude to all of you who have helped, whether it be in time, donations, prayers, etc. They are so thankful for the kindness that they've received while in Texas. As with any kind of experience such as this, you get so much more out of it than what you put into it, and that's definitely what happened to me. Thanks for letting me share this experience.
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That's the end of my write-up for IBM. I can't believe it has been nearly 3 years since that tragic event. I think about it often. I didn't get Gertrude's biography written, but she still lives in Austin, as does Miss Alice. They live in the same apartment complex on MLK, along with several other senior citizens from New Orleans. They weren't home owners and therefore have no control over whether or not to return home. I cannot imagine never being able to return to the only home that I've ever known. Here's a video that I found on YouTube that sums things up pretty well.
I also want to write about a couple of other things while they're on my mind. There was so much sickness throughout the 4000 evacuees at the Austin Convention Center. Keep in mind that many of them had waded through the contaminated water in New Orleans to get to safety -- water filled with all manner of bacteria, oil, gasoline, sewage, and dead bodies, both animal and human. After arriving at a safer place, there was no food or water for them. For those who got to the freeway overpasses, there was no shade. They didn't have clean clothing to change into, they didn't have any way to wash their hands or perform any kind of hygiene. When they were finally rescued from New Orleans, they were still dressed in their filthy clothing, still hadn't been able to clean themselves, or anything. Then some of them made the 8+ hour bus ride to Austin, while others were on military planes without any seats to sit on. They had to sit on the floor and be strapped down like cargo.
Because of these circumstances, when they arrived at Austin, they had to strip down and take showers, given clean clothing, go to a triage unit to assess their medical needs, and find a cot to call home for an indefinite period of time. As I stated before, many people, both old and young, required wheelchairs for the first several days because of exhaustion, illness, injury, or all of the above. No one had their medications with them, so we frantically worked with CVS to get the medications to the most urgent cases, such as diabetes. People were wretching their stomachs out and having diarreah issues. I remember one man in particular sitting on the edge of his cot with his head down. It took me a moment, but then I saw that he was throwing up. I grabbed a mop and cleaned it up for him. He was so grateful.
Another case was a little girl, maybe age 2 or 3. I was standing in line at the CVS trailer to get prescriptions for people, and a young mother was also in line, holding her little girl. Without any warning, the little girl threw up all over her mom, her new stuffed toy, and a little on me. For anyone who knows me, you know that seeing or hearing vomit makes me want to vomit, but for some reason, none of it bothered me. I know that I was blessed for that short period of time not to get sick. The little girl was so sad because we had to throw away her new stuffed animal and strip her down. She was crying uncontrollably -- it was so pitiful! Anyhow, I happened to have brought a few stuffed animals from home that day, and I had one left. So I gave it to her, and her tears stopped immediately!
As we would go from cot to cot checking on people, there were those for which we had to summon a nurse because they were too weak or sick to take care of themselves. The nurses and EMTs were amazing! Some people were so sick that they were transferred to hospitals or to another area in the shelter where medical staff were there round the clock.
Another thing to remember is that many of these people didn't know where their other family members were. They didn't know if they were dead or alive, or if they made it safely to a shelter. When they got on busses, airplanes, and helicopters, they didn't know what their destination was until they got there. Many times, they were told that they were going one place, but they ended up in another place. Confusion and disorientation.
Well, I think that's all that I had on my mind. Of course, there's always more to remember and more to tell, so maybe that will come at a later time.
After writing the piece for IBM, I had more amazing experiences that I'll write about in another blog sometime. In early October of the same year, Hurricane Rita came calling. A week later, I made the trip to New Orleans to retrieve some belongings of some of the evacuees. I think that I've written all of that down somewhere, so I'll try to find it and post it here.
In
the meantime, here's a picture of Gertrude, Heather, Miss Alice, and me
after a Christmas concert in South Austin.
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