Keith Thibodeaux isn’t exactly accustomed to having a news crew take his picture while he gets a haircut.
“But I’m smiling,” Thibodeaux said, doing just that. “‘Cause I’m happy I’m not down there drowning in all that.”
In the next chair over at Max Salon of Cherry Creek on Wednesday, Clorissa Fontenot was well into hour two of having her hair debraided – one shoestring-size braid at time.
She was smiling too.
A little over a week ago, she and her 3-year-old daughter were floating through the streets of what had been their neighborhood on a mattress with four other people.
When the mattress flipped, Fontenot didn’t give much thought to what that slimy water was doing to her hair.
But safe, dry and reunited with her husband, Louis Washington, Fontenot, Thibodeaux and a couple dozen other Hurricane Katrina survivors agreed it felt good having professionals wash the gunk out for good and getting a trim, shave or touch of color.
Max Salon was full Wednesday, but there was not a paying customer in the place. The salon – and an assortment of stylists from across the metro area – donated services for the day, according to manager Elva Cruz.
When Niecy Pewett heard about what was happening at the salon where she used to work, “I ran to do it,” she said, running a razor across the increasingly hairless head of Ervin Walker.
Nearby, Christopher LeBlanc was getting a facial from Mattie Harris. Before Katrina, LeBlanc worked at a Marriott hotel in downtown New Orleans. During Katrina, he said he went door to door persuading people to run or swim to higher ground.
He’s still angry, he said, about the way local and federal officials handled the hurricane. He’s also angry about the way the city’s residents were portrayed.
Accounts of looting and violence were overblown, he said. “They made us look like a bunch of savages.”
People did break into stores, mostly for food or water, he said. “There were a handful of knuckle heads. But that had nothing to do with the heart of the city.”
Few of those at Max Salon said they would return to the Crescent City.
Alicia Thibodeaux, for one, has had enough water. “We’re staying here. I can’t be floating around any more,” she said.
Thibodeaux, who had lived in Denver, moved to New Orleans several years ago, after marrying Keith Thibodeaux.
Keith Thibodeaux rode out the storm on a ship built for the Navy by his employer, Northrop Grumman.
He’s an electrician, and his job was to test the amphibious crafts’ electrical systems. He and other employees stayed on the nearly completed ship to monitor any damage.
It was his wife who “really suffered,” he said.
Alicia Thibodeaux and her daughter spent three days on the second-floor balcony of their home before “a gentleman in a boat” rescued them.
They wound up on an Interstate 10 overpass – with thousands of others who had no food, no shelter and no bathroom.
“I sat on a buggy to keep out of the filth,” she said.
After more than a week, the family reunited in Texas.
“I kiss her feet now everyday. I really do,” Keith Thibodeaux said. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
KATRINA BRIEFING
Douglas to aid Miss. county
Douglas County is adopting Jackson County, Miss., to help hurricane victims with a fundraiser on Sept. 23 at the Event Center in Castle Rock.
From 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., children can donate new toys to kids displaced by the storm as well as write and draw cards and enjoy clowns, balloons, face-painting and other entertainment.
Beginning at 6 p.m., three bands will perform. There also will be a live auction and a silent auction of valuable donated items. The evening will include guest speakers and other events.
The effort, called “Douglas County Cares: Katrina Relief, Jackson County, Miss.,” is sponsored by the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department and the Douglas County Commission.
Local businesses will match the dollar amounts raised at the event.
400 now sheltered at Lowry
About 400 evacuees of Hurricane Katrina are receiving care and shelter at the former Lowry Air Force Base, the governor’s office said Tuesday.
But Dan Hopkins, press secretary to Gov. Bill Owens, said he was not sure how many more evacuees would be arriving in Denver or the total number staying with families around the state.
Breweries to can drinking water
Anheuser-Busch said Wednesday that its breweries in Fort Collins and Jacksonville, Fla., will devote a portion of their capacity to canning drinking water this week.
The water is being delivered to victims and relief workers in the Gulf Coast region.
Anheuser-Busch already has donated more than 4 million cans of water since Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, said Patrick Stokes, president and chief executive officer of Anheuser-Busch Cos.
CU to help New Orleans college
A fund to assist Dillard University in New Orleans has been established by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Dillard is a historical, private, black liberal-arts college with about 2,000 students. It has been a “partner institution” with CU-Boulder for five years. The college canceled classes for the 2005 fall semester but is working on getting students back in school for the 2006 spring semester.
Contributions may be made to the “CU Campaign for Dillard” at the United Negro College Fund at www.uncf.org.
If giving, call United Way at 211
Anyone offering assistance or donations to Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Colorado are asked to call 211, the United Way’s assistance call center.
“The evacuees are now getting their immediate needs met. So we want to coordinate the long-term relief offers, such as housing, jobs and schooling,” said United Way spokeswoman Stacey Haskell.
Haskell said the 211 call center has been receiving an average of 2,000 calls a day since Sunday, 10 times the normal volume.
