Pearlington, Miss. – In a night and a day in late August, Hurricane Katrina swept up the Gulf Coast and pushed a 20-foot wall of water along the Pearl River, devastating this tiny backwoods community in Hancock County, located east of the Louisiana border.
For three days, Pearlington fended for itself. When help did trickle in, it was in the form of ice and water from the U.S. military. Red Cross food and volunteer help followed.
And then came a handful of volunteers and trucks full of supplies from an unlikely source: Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley.
An SOS e-mail sent from a Pearlington resident in the days before help arrived prompted the Carbondale & Rural Fire Protection District, some 1,500 miles away, to adopt Pearlington.
“We wanted to help a community that was not in the national headlines … that was not getting any help,” Chief Ron Leach said.
Shortly thereafter, many of the valley’s other jurisdictions – including Aspen, Pitkin County, Snowmass Village and Basalt – joined in.
Carbondale donated an ambulance and stationed at least two firefighters in Pearlington.Drugs and workers were donated by hospitals in Aspen and Glenwood Springs.
More than $100,000 worth of supplies – from tents, food and cooking equipment to backpacks, children’s books and chain saws – have been collected in the Roaring Fork Valley and delivered via six separate delivery runs. A seventh convoy will leave in early December, carrying Christmas presents for Pearlington children.
“Y’all are the ones that stepped up to the plate and didn’t ask for anything in return. You sent the best of the best down here,” Pearlington school teacher Jeanne Brooks said of the efforts from Colorado.
“I have fallen in love with all these people. It’s like there’s a very strong bond, and it’s like they are part of me and I’m part of them. I’m overwhelmed with it, I honestly am.”
Most of the goods end up in the Charles B. Murphy Elementary School and Public Library.
Where once there were lesson plans and schoolbooks, there are now bunk beds, a medical clinic and a distribution center for food and donated items. It’s been dubbed “Pearl-Mart.”
Some of the donated items are useless, like nail polish and hair dye.
“We go through stuff to make sure what we place allows people to have a little bit of dignity,” said Carbondale firefighter Will Handville, as he helped load shelves.
Handville and other Carbondale firefighters also are clearing fallen trees from residents’ homes. Only two of Pearlington’s 850 or so homes were inhabitable after Katrina.
Once a property has a clear space, FEMA can deliver a trailer, the best short-term housing solution.
One resident dependent on her FEMA trailer is Orelia Marshall. Like everyone in this town, Marshall has an incredible story.
She said she knew it was time to get out of her home when two eels slithered in with a wash of water. She escaped on a boat with her nephew, daughter, brother, son and a friend. She said she tried to pull her cousin aboard, but he slipped and drowned.
Marshall’s home is now rotting from the inside out. Family photographs, furniture and walls are all coated in a deepening layer of mold.
“What really bothers me is they focused a lot on New Orleans and Gulfport,” she said.
The Roaring Fork Valley’s presence can be felt in a an elementary school art classroom-turned-clinic, staffed by Aspen Valley Clinic volunteers.
Chris Martinez, an Aspen Valley Hospital emergency- room doctor, said the most common problems existed before the storm. Hypertension, heart problems and diabetes are all prevalent. Upper respiratory problems have been exacerbated by a proliferation of mold, he said.
The Roaring Fork Valley’s presence in Pearlington ends Dec. 8. But plans are in place to create a more permanent connection: volunteers and schoolkids are planning to build a park.
“There will be long-term relations,” said Leach, the fire chief. “The project will change, but it won’t die.”
