Katrina - “It was bad, really bad.” |
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September 16th, 2005 - 12:00AM |
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A man clings to the top of a vehicle before being rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard from the flooded streets of New Orleans. Photo: Reuters, Robert Galbraith, courtesy www.alertnet.org Louisiana native Lisa David, now the IRC's regional refugee resettlement director in Dallas, traveled back to her home state to join an IRC team supporting local relief efforts for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Monday, September 5 With each passing day, there are more reports filing into Baton Rouge of shelter sites across the state and across the country. The assessment team learns that there are approximately 6,000 evacuees at the Cajundome in Lafayette. We’ve also heard about another 1,200 in the city of Rayne (which itself has a population of only about 8,500). The team decides I should head west and evaluate the shelter situations in the area around Lafayette – the Cajun country that is my home. I get into Lafayette around 5:30 PM and stop at the Cajundome. I speak with the Red Cross shelter manager who tells me that the population is very much in flux at the moment. They are currently housing about 4,000 evacuees. Many have been bussed directly out of New Orleans. These evacuees had to walk through the polluted water to escape and decontamination is a real concern. I note that a volunteer is standing at the main entry and squirting hand sanitizer gel on the hands of anyone entering or leaving the building. The shelter manager says they have a lot of sick people. Local doctors and nurses have set up a hospital on site and are meeting the immediate health care needs of the evacuees. As I am leaving, I run into a gentleman in the parking lot standing at the trunk of his car and moving plastic garbage bags around. He gives me a big smile and asks me how I am doing. I say fine and ask him if he is an evacuee. He says he is. He says he was one of the lucky ones who made it out of New Orleans when the evacuation order was given. All of his earthly possessions are now in those bags in the trunk of his car. He tells me he spent a few days at the shelter site in Thibodaux (about 60 miles southwest of New Orleans). He is passing through to pick up a friend he found here at the Cajundome, and then they will be moving on to Houston to stay with friends until they can figure out “what comes next”. When I ask him about New Orleans, he loses his smile for the first time, looks down at the ground shaking his head and just says, “It was bad, really bad.” Posted By: Kathleen Sands | Hurricane Katrina Permalink |
