Stunned by the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina and dismayed by the initial government response, officials in Carbondale have “adopted” the small Gulf Coast town of Pearlington, Miss., for a concerted community-to-community relief effort.
Pitkin County, meanwhile, is looking to form a similar partnership with a community damaged by last month’s hurricane.
Douglas County has linked up with Mississippi’s Jackson County for the focus of its efforts.
Such arrangements allow local residents to take ownership of rebuilding efforts through their donations and supplies rather than seeing them disappear in the vast distribution efforts by the Red Cross, said Nan Sundeen, director of community relations and health and human services for Pitkin County.
“We’ve felt a lot of excitement because of the fact that it provides a long-term, caring relationship, and it directs the energy that people seem to have here to want to help,” she said.
In Douglas County, officials have arranged a Sept. 23 benefit for Jackson County, Miss.
The hard-hit area on the Alabama border, comprised of small towns such as Gautier, Latimer and Pascagoula, is known as part of the “Redneck Riviera” for its white-sand beaches.
Carbondale Fire Chief Ron Leach picked Pearlington among the rural communities hardest hit by the hurricane and least supported by relief operations.
“We wanted to help a community that was not in the national headlines … that was not getting any help,” he told the Aspen Times.
The poor, waterfront town of about 1,700, only 35 miles east of New Orleans, was almost completely wiped out by the floodwaters, said fire department spokesman Doug Davis.
“Everything just looks devastated, flat. It’s hard to even understand some of this damage,” he said, reflecting on photographs he’s seen of the town.
The fire department is donating an ambulance that it had for sale on a car lot in Denver, and a local hospital has agreed to stock it with medical supplies.
Meanwhile, the rest of the town in the Roaring Fork Valley north of Aspen jumped on board, and, at a meeting set for Thursday night, citizens were to begin collecting items needed for the relief effort.
“We quickly made the decision that we needed to cut through the red tape, and we said, ‘Let’s not dillydally around here,”‘ Davis said.
The fire chief in Pearlington “said he’s just so happy that somebody called, that somebody cares,” Davis said.
Then, Davis said, the chief added a personal request.
“He said: ‘You know, I’m living out of the back of my pickup truck. I hate to ask this, but can somebody send me a pair of jeans and a couple of T-shirts?”‘
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
