Katrina and Her Sister Rita

On Wednesday morning, we meet our PTA hosts at Starbucks and they take us on a driving tour of the hardest hit areas of Slidell.  We finally get to meet Cheryl, the Louisiana State PTA President.  For a long time, she was the only contact we had with Louisiana, and we were updated by our State PTA Representative about Cheryl's whereabouts, the condition of her house, and her family.  She is a warm and funny person, and she tells us, "For the record, I was not, nor have ever been, living in a trailer."  One of the early stories we heard about her was that she was holed up in a trailer outside her home.  She tells us that she can live in the house, but that a tree fell in the pool and has morphed into The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  She can't complain, she says.  She is much more worried about her local PTA Presidents, some of whom have been unreachable since the storm.  Cheryl hasn't been in Slidell since the storm, and so she hasn't seen the neighborhoods either.

Cathy tells us that there are some schools that are not on our "sister school" list that she thinks we should see.  The hardest hit school is Walter Abney Elementary, which was directly in the flood zone. 100% of the students at that school had homes that were flooded, and many have not returned to school yet.  Abney has reopened one wing.  She also mentions Salmen High School and St. Tammany Junior High, which are closed due to storm damage.  The children from St. Tammany are now "platooning" at Slidell Junior High, meaning going to school in shifts.  One group goes early in the morning until 1:00 pm; the other school goes from 1 to 7 pm.

We drive down a main street in Slidell toward Abney Elementary School with Michelle, Cathy, and Cheryl and it looks like a war zone.  Shells of buildings that used to be businesses stand along the street, with piles of debris littering the parking lots.  I notice that construction is going on in only one of them.  A handful of men are welding metal frames together inside a concrete shell.  The rest of the buildings are empty.  The Blockbuster has piles of gooey tapes and ruined DVD cases outside.  A clothing store has a mound of boxes and clothes in front of it.  Everywhere, we see the aftermath of a violent storm that showed no mercy.

A long line of cars is waiting to make a right turn into what looks like a big red and white circus tent in a parking lot.  "Red Cross station," Michelle says.  "They set up these tents and a drive-thrus and people wait hours and hours to fill out forms."  They are concerned about elderly people.  "How can they wait in a five hour line outside in 90 degree heat?"  she wonders.  No one know what, if anything, is being done to help the elderly or disabled to make sure that they are getting the same benefits as everyone else.

As we approach the school, we enter a residential neighborhood.  This is one of the hardest hit areas of Slidell, where flood waters rose up to 11 feet in some areas.  Street after street, neighborhood after neighborhood has piles of debris on the lawn.  These are middle class houses, mostly brick and much like the house I grew up in--modest, but comfortable ranch-style homes on a small lot, with a nice yard.  Several of the houses have swing sets and playhouses toppled over in the back.   Outside some of the homes, there are RVs and camping trailers parked in the driveway.  "That's where the family lives now," says Cathy, "inside the trailer." 

Every house has a pile of debris on the front yard and a blue tarp on the roof.  The mounds by the street contain fixtures, sheet rock, molding couches, artwork in broken frames, rotting wooden dining room tables.  These are the things it takes a lifetime to collect.  I'm sure that each piece of furniture was lovingly chosen by the homeowner, or perhaps something handed down.  All of these objects are imbued with memories for the people who lived in these homes. Now, it's all part of the trash.   

Some of the tree debris has crowded onto the street, so only one car can pass at a time.  Luckily, there aren't any more cars on the road.  We slow down or get out occasionally to take pictures, but it feels uncomfortable to do so. I feel the a police photographer taking pictures at a crime scene.  I try to remain detached and just document what I'm seeing, but it seems disrespectful somehow, as though I'm photographing someones broken dream.

We arrive at Walter Abney Elementary, one of the schools that is not on our sister school list, but that the PTA officials are adamant that we see.  In the front yard are signs boasting "Winner-- Cleanest School Award 2005."  This school is open, but is one of the schools in the middle of the flood zone.  100% of the children who go to this school have been affected by the storm, and most are homeless now.  The children from the shelter we visited yesterday go to this school also, even though they come from all over.

We meet with Lynn, a Resource Teacher, who shows us around.  Lynn tells us that the school flooded and one wing remains closed.  She shows us the water mark on one of the doors to a classroom, which is above knee-level.  The kindergarten and first grade rooms were hardest hit, because everything in those rooms is build low to the ground.  The teachers in those rooms lost years and years worth of classroom equipment--small toys and manipulatives, bulletin board sets, rugs, and other things that made their classrooms unique and inviting to children.  We walk down a hallway, which is brightly painted with Sesame Street characters toward the kindergarten room.

We walk in, and there are about 40 kindergarten students in one large room with two teachers and two teacher's aides.  One boy is having a disagreement with the teacher.  She calls him by both his first and last name, as though it is one big word, like "JohnDoe".  She says calmly, "Now, JohnDoe, I know you're upset, but you need to join the others for story time." 

He refuses and starts to cry.  "I'm going home!" he exclaims.  He takes two big stomping steps toward the door, and freezes.  His face is crestfallen and he puts his head in his hands and sobs.  I have no idea what crossed his mind at that moment--that he was going to be in trouble and he better obey the teacher, or if suddenly realized that he didn't have a home to go back to.

We retreat to the hallway with one of the teachers, who agrees to let Jill videotape her.  She seems a little apprehensive at first, but starts telling us about the things that she lost.  She was a Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year and received a grant from Wal-Mart.  She spent the money on special rugs for the classroom, but those had to be thrown out.  She said, "I'm a Raggedy Ann nut, and I've collected things with Raggedy Ann and Andy for years.  It may sound silly, but all those years of collecting things for my room to make it special are gone, just gone."  Part of her beloved Raggedy Ann collection was a clock hand-carved by a parent who died of cancer last year.  "That clock," she says with tears in her eyes, "Can never be replaced."

While she is talking, a first grade teacher across the hall comes out and gives me a collection of "Katrina stories" written and illustrated by her class.  On the first day back at school, she asked each child to write what happened to them during the storm and draw a picture.  The stories were about evacuating and staying in motel rooms in Florida and Texas and coming home to find their toys were all gone, or their house split in two by a tree. 

One of them says,

"I went to Florida.  I stayed at a hotel.  I took my dog for a walk and I looked for hermit crabs.  I found some.  Right now we live in a travel trailer in front of our house.  We got 5 feet of water in our house." 

At the bottom is a drawing of a trailer, this child's home.

Another one says,

"Me and my mom went to Jackson first.  Then we went to Texas to get away from Katrina's sister Rita.  We stayed at my aunt's house.  I liked playing with my toys.  I lost my little turtle from Rita's sister Katrina.  There was mud in my bathtub and on the toilet!  We have to live upstairs where it is clean."

There is a tiny drawing of a turtle, the thing this boy loved and lost, at the bottom of the page.

I read this one and started to cry,

"During the hurricane we went to a jail and stayed with all the soldiers.  One room was 3500 ft long!  We was running around playing.  I played with my legos.  We went to a hotel, then we went home and had a giant mess.  I didn't like the hurricane because it destroyed my mama's old house.  I did like the 3500 ft long room we stayed in at the jail."

I think at that point, seeing the kids and reading these stories, really made it all hit home for me.  My own son is five and in kindergarten.  He's a defiant, willful boy like JohnDoe.  He would have fun in a hotel or even a "jail", and be upset losing a turtle or toys.  These stories must only scratch the surface of what these children are feeling and thinking.  I can't imagine what this must be like for their parents, to have to live in half a house or a trailer in the driveway--and to be considered among the lucky to have that.

After meeting these two teachers, we walk around a bit more and run into a young woman carrying an armload of metal and a broom.  She is part of a group of high school students from Colorado who have taken their fall break week to come to Slidell to help rebuild Abney Elementary's playground.  Since there were no hotel rooms and all of the student homes had been flooded, these kids had to sleep in tents in the gymnasium--there is no place else for them to go.   The Colorado kids have painted, put up shelves and done whatever was needed.  The teachers clearly admire and appreciate what these kids were doing.  Somewhere in Colorado, there is a group of parents who should be very, very proud.

Much of the initial clean-up work was done by the National Guard, Coast Guard, and Army.  The school has posted signs all over the school thanking them for their efforts.  The hand-painted signs say, "Thanks for Cleaning Our Yard, National Guard!" 

In the corridor, there are boxes of clothes and shoes are lined up against the wall. We meet the Principal and she tells us that the night before had been Open School Night, and "It was a bit different from our normal Open School Night."  They had received some donations from Minnesota and put them out for the parents to take what they needed as far as clothes or shoes.  The donations came from Slidell's "Sister City" in Minnesota.  They were grateful to have something to give the parents. 

We asked what they needed most right now, and they told us the greatest needs remaining are for basics like socks, underwear, and school uniforms--khaki pants (Lands End or Gap type pants) and plain colored dark green polo shirt.  They also need classroom aids for teachers--small manipulatives, blocks, building materials, and art supplies.  About half of the children we saw at this school did not have uniforms.  We now have many of these items on our Amazon Wish List for St. Tammany Schools.

After this, we drove around a bit more so we could see three schools that were closed due to the storm.   We passed through neighborhoods where we see several houses that had been split in two by giant trees falling on them.  It is odd that my eyes register that there is a house with a tree in the middle of it, but it takes a second or two for my brain to catch up with what I am actually seeing.  These once-beautiful homes, some recently built, are now uninhabitable.  One of them has a statue of an Easter Island Moai wearing Mardi Gras beads in the front yard.  Like the real statues of Easter Island, he stands like a sentinel, a silent witness to destruction.

We drive down through the Olde Towne part of Slidell, by the main fire station and the City Hall.  Outside the Baptist church, the pews are lined up in a neat row.  Nearby is Michelle's shop.  Michelle was one week away from opening a bead and make-it-yourself jewelry shop when the storm hit.  It is a pretty blue building with white trim, and on the outside it looks to be in good shape.  It was flooded during the storm and she lost all of her inventory.  A pile of computer equipment, shelving, and office furniture sits outside.  We peer in the windows and can see the mold creeping up the walls, but the shop is empty.  Michelle has to fight back angry tears.  This shop was something she had dreamed about and worked hard for a long time to open.  "Gone," she says, "It's all gone."

Our last stop is at Slidell Junior High School, where the school district has set up a donation distribution center.  Groups from all over the country have sent donations of toys, clothes, school supplies, books, and other needed items, and this gymnasium is the only place in Slidell that they could house them.  On the way in, we met the principal coming in for work.  Since the children are platooning, she comes in at 1:00 pm and stays until 8:00 or 9:00 at night.  She said that it has been "just crazy."  She reiterates the need for school uniforms.

Inside, we meet several teachers and administrators from different schools who are there to find things for their classrooms.  One teacher is delighted to find two brand-new toy fire trucks in boxes of toys.  I ask the Assistant Principal from Bayou-Lacombe how these items made it to this school and she says, "I don't know how they found us.  I'm just thankful that they did."  She mentions that one principal had a cousin in Zanesville, Ohio that knew people who owned a school supply store.  His church rallied and bought school supplies, and the store owners donated about $1000 worth.  They also mention that Mercy Corps had delivered a large number of school supplies to them during the first week of school.

On Tuesdays, teachers from all over St. Tammany fax in orders of what they need and the teachers at the center fill the orders and set them aside.  Students can come in, one class at a time, to repopulate their classroom libraries.  They hope to open it to the public on the weekend so that clothes can be distributed.

One of the teachers organizing the donations told us that she returned home after the storm to find three giant trees had crashed through the back of her house.  She stopped a truck with a "tree removal" sign on it and asked if the man could remove them.  He said, "My price is $5,000 per tree and I only take cash.  Take it or leave it."   She said she sat down on the curb and started to cry when he drove off.   Three Marines pulled up and asked if they could help.  She told them what happened and they found someone with a chainsaw and the three of them removed the trees for her.  She gave the man with the chain saw $500 and he was grateful to get it.  She and her husband, along with two grown children, their spouses, and her grandchildren now live in the front of the house--the back is too badly damaged.  She said, "It could have been worse...we could have lost the whole house and then none of us would have a place to go." 

At the end of our visit, Jill waves me over to a wall in the hallway, with what had to be the biggest smile I've ever seen on her face.  Along the wall are stacks and stacks of Amazon.com boxes.  These boxes contain the first shipments of airmatresses that PAMP members and their friends have sent.  Several of the teachers and a custodian, themselves homeless and living on floors and couches of relatives, ask us about these--we tell them to help themselves and take what they need.  We know it's what our members would want.  It's why we came here.