Amid the Tragedy, Threads of Hope

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Business Journal Publisher Matthew Toledo spent several days in Louisiana helping with the relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Here are some of his observations of the experience.


“I felt I had to get on a plane and help in any way that I could. Except there was a problem: I had never been involved in a relief effort and I didn’t have the nine days the Red Cross requires each relief worker to spend on an assignment after they have been trained.


“I decided to buy a plane ticket and take my chances once I got to Baton Rouge. My dear friend Julio Melara, who publishes the Baton Rouge Business Report, arranged for me to be picked up at the airport. Julio later dropped me off at the Red Cross headquarters.


“I let the registration staff person know that all my paperwork was still in process and asked them to place me where they had the greatest need. I told them I could do anything. They asked me if I had been trained as a shelter manager, and I said absolutely.


“I was sent to a shelter in the community of Plaquemine, which had about 650 residents. I was to relieve two managers who had been there without support for four days and nights. They gave me a brief orientation on what needed to be done; we served the residents dinner and put out the lights at 9:30. The two other shelter managers went to sleep and I ran the shelter until 5 the next morning.


“That morning, five additional shelter managers arrived and I was ready for my next assignment, a shelter in Livingston parish that had had its share of problem residents the night before.


“I worked through the day and night getting people cots, blankets and food, and then spent the evening sorting clothes and shoes that had been donated. One of the things that impressed me was the tremendous support that the local residents had offered to the new ‘residents’ of their community. There was a constant stream of locals sorting clothes, serving meals, offering jobs even the use of their homes.


“Later, I hitched a ride with a Red Cross van that had staffers assessing the needs of six shelters along the way. This gave me a chance to see all these shelters in action. One of them was not an official shelter. We learned that a woman who runs a local day care center had been feeding 150 evacuees for the past three days.


“Everybody had their own tale of survival. There were many disturbing stories, but there were also several stories of hope. Like the grandmother with three young children who crawled out of their second story window to escape the rising waters. Just then, an empty fishing boat was floating towards them. They got on and reached safety.


“Then there were the two young men who drove their red Toyota pickup from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. They arrived at the shelter seeking food and a place to sleep. The next day they went out into the community and got jobs with a local building contractor. The next day they asked to be woken up by 5:30 so they could report to work on time. The day after that they went out and signed a two-year lease on a trailer to move into.


“These guys, along with the hundreds of volunteers that I was with, are the images that will stay with me folks looking out for each other and committed to making things better.”

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