Redeemer University College Hurricane Katrina Relief Story by Jeanette Lodewyks, Redeemer Team Leader Mission trips during Reading Break for Redeemer University College students are regular. However, the usual destination of Port Gibson, Mississippi, changed to New Orleans because of its acute need after Hurricane Katrina. Some of the New Orleans work team. > So what was it like there? What did we see and learn? On February 17, 2006, the school bus was loaded and 14 Redeemer students and 7 leaders were headed to New Orleans to spend their reading break as participants in the relief project. Our first impression of the situation came much earlier than we had expected. The official at the border was rather sour about our intentions, saying that everything was okay by now, and that our assistance was not necessary. We were, nonetheless, allowed to proceed with our trip.  As we got closer to Louisiana, we noticed that several trees along the road were down, and after crossing the bridge, we soon entered New Orleans from the east end. < Mounds of garbage line the street. Our destination was Luling, a community southwest of the city which was not very affected by the storms. The volunteer village wasn’t quite completely developed, but functional. We shared worship time with the Presbyterians on Sunday morning and chatted with them after the service. We were shown a picture of two log cabins that were recently built as a fishing excursion business, and then we saw the after-Katrina picture which showed no sign of any building at all. We sensed bitterness when we were told that the mortgage payments survived the storm. The volunteer village was shared by us with a group from Washington State who came equipped with a pastor, a cook, and a worship leader who was a professional musician. The worship leader introduced the students to the song “If I Had a Hammer” which turned out to be the hit song of the week. Despite being crippled, New Orleans continued to host Mardi Gras, and so we were able to watch a couple of parades, accumulating a large collection of beads thrown at us from the floats. The French Quarter was quite a beehive of activity, however the Riverwalk Mall was a ghost town with many of the shops and restaurants empty. We were told that many people had no job after the storm, and hotels were filled with residents whose homes were unworthy to live in. Several people moved out permanently, leaving a fractured circle of friends behind.  The commute to the worksites was at least an hour each way, often accompanied by traffic jams. Our group was split into two crews; one group gutted an older home, a time-consuming process with its hardwood floors, plaster and lath walls and ceilings, and several layers of kitchen flooring, while the other crew was involved with the emotional procedure of helping the homeowners toss all their household belongings out to the curb. Many wept. > A refrigerator lies sideways on a counter. After the contents were removed, the team gutted the house down to the studs. Six months after the hurricane, many houses still contained the upside-down mess of furniture and appliances wherever they settled after floating around in the floodwaters, with mold everywhere. For the most part, everything was garbage, and numerous streetscapes were dominated by a mountain of trash in front of many homes. Some houses were completely abandoned. The magnitude of rebuilding New Orleans is phenomenal. We contributed by giving hope and help for one week; the labour of 21 people, and gutted only three houses. My heart goes out to the people of this city whose lives were devastated by the loss of everything they owned, their jobs, and their friends. Their entire town has changed. There was much criticism of the governments, especially towards FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), and of banks and insurance companies. Let’s not allow criticism to be directed at churches and Christians by withholding our help. |
