What did the 2004 hurricane victim say to the 2005 hurricane victim?
Welcome to my apartment.
It’s not a punch line. It’s the sober truth from the Gulf Coast, which is fast becoming America’s ongoing saga of Job. Devastating hurricanes hit one part of the coast, and while relief experts there scrambled to find housing for victims, a new gale blew more homeless their way.
Shannon Broussard works for Rebuild Northwest Florida, where Hurricane Ivan last summer shoved 50,000 people from their homes. Already exhausted from the year-long challenge, she now stumbles home at the end of the day to up to 11 Hurricane Katrina evacuees sleeping on the floor of her one-bedroom apartment.
“They’re from Waveland, which has been knocked off the map in Mississippi,” Broussard said. “They know they’re welcome at my house, but they also know it’s temporary. This community was stretched as it was.”
The faces may change, but the numbers are only getting worse: A string of recent hurricanes is creating a permanent wandering class from Florida to Texas. The magnitude of Katrina has even experts on dislocation nearly speechless when it comes to offering advice. It’s impossible to talk about long-term housing, they said, when thousands stuck in New Orleans are begging for water, their next meal and a safe place to use the bathroom.
“In this case, a lot of the old remedies don’t seem to apply,” said Robert Butterworth, a trauma psychologist in California who has treated natural disaster victims. “It’s left us scratching our heads.”
“What we’re talking about is a huge disruption of the daily routine,” said David Sattler, a Western Washington University psychology professor who has traveled to study the impact of 1992’s Hurricane Andrew, last year’s tsunami in Thailand and other disasters. Katrina survivors not only lost their homes, they have been moved away from family and neighbors and schools, and their jobs are likely gone, Sattler said.
And the floodwaters are still there, covering everything familiar.
“What we all need for mental health is stability,” he said.
As dislocation goes, Janine Donelon will be one of the lucky ones. Her New Orleans house was right next to the primary levee breach and is completely under water. But she and her husband left the city before Katrina, to batten down a vacation property they own in Destin, Fla; they can stay there for now, and her husband’s employer is looking for housing for them near the home office in Lafayette, La.
Still, the Donelons are far from the stability underlined by experts. Their 14-year-old cat was left behind and is surely lost. They’re still seeking neighbors who stayed behind on the block. They wonder what’s floating away from the house.
“At this point, we’re trying not to watch TV anymore,” Donelon said. “It’s just upsetting us.”
Survivors of other recent disasters aren’t pretending to extend sage advice to New Orleans evacuees. There’s simply nothing like it, and nothing to compare, said Laurie Glauth, whose ranch burned during Colorado’s largest recorded wildfire – the Hayman fire – in 2002.
“My basic needs were met. All of the people who were evacuated from Hayman, our basic needs were met. We didn’t have to worry about food or a roof over our heads or getting knifed in the dark trying to use the bathroom,” Glauth said.
Even in the horrifying South Asian tsunami, Glauth noted, “the water went in, and then it went back out,” unlike the ongoing putrid pool covering New Orleans. “I don’t think the reality of this has set in for the majority of Americans watching.”
For evacuees and rescuers alike, the scale of Katrina will be overwhelming, said Dave Harris, helping to relocate homeless in Florida’s DeSoto County after last summer’s Hurricane Charley. DeSoto is still trying to help 800 to 1,200 families “we haven’t been able to get to yet, even a year later,” Harris said.
“For late August and September, we have almost nothing in terms of volunteers,” he said. “A lot of people are very depressed. The biggest holdup is manpower, and keeping people interested. People say a year later, ‘Aren’t they fixed yet?’ No, they’re not.”
Tony McRae, special projects director for the two counties in Rebuild Northwest Florida, knows he’ll lose some of the few volunteers because of Katrina. “You know how it is when your family is in danger,” McRae said. “Your immediate family gets the most of your attention, but if you have an uncle or aunt that’s sick, you have to attend to them, too.”
His county was scheduled to close a federally financed evacuee trailer park on Thursday. Not only will it stay open, it will now get bigger.
Officials need to take control of the big crowds before they worry about long-term housing, Butterworth said. New Orleans residents have been “cut off from basic needs, family and all information, which is how you make prisoners break down and talk,” he said. “You need someone to come in and tell them what to do, where to go.”
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
