9/14/2005 10:59:00 AM Hurricane refugees arrive as local relief efforts grow
Scott Landis kisses his wife Kathleen Mitchell as he prepares to board a bus bound for the Gulf Coast to help in the hurricane relief effort. Yesterday, Landis was driving the Port Townsend relief worker bus through the deserted streets of downtown New Orleans. – Photo by Steven J. Barry
Several families who had their lives ravaged by Hurricane Katrina have relocated here, according to the Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the Red Cross, and more may be on the way. Meanwhile, local efforts to help them and other victims of the disaster continue to grow.
William Ayers was the chef at Fort Worden State Park’s food service until two years ago, when he, his wife Kim and their 12- and 15-year-old daughters moved back to New Orleans.
Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters forced them out and they had to move again.
“We knew we had to make one decision, and we wanted to come back where the girls were the happiest,” Kim Ayers said.
While browsing the Web for a job, the family found Jordan Smith’s phone number on The Leader website.
Smith, co-founder of the Port Townsend Katrina Relocation Committee, told them to head this way and she would fill in the blanks. The committee was able to line up the family with a studio apartment in Port Townsend as well as free, immediate medical attention.
City Councilmember Laurie Medlicott – who knew the family from her volunteer efforts at Fort Worden – also offered her home to the family. They pulled into Port Townsend on Saturday in a rented van with little more than the clothes on their backs and a few pets. They stayed with Medlicott for two days before moving into the apartment.
Ayers said that upon arriving at Medlicott’s home, her family felt “warm and fuzzy. She had her flannel bathrobes ready for us.”
Everyone appeared to be in good health after the long journey from Louisiana, though her husband has required some continued medical attention, she said.
She said the family rode out the hurricane in their rented home in the city of Slidell, just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. She said she has been through hurricanes before, but Katrina’s magnitude was unbelievable.
“Tree tops were popping, just popping all over the place,” she said. “It was like a jumbo jet taking off, just roaring, but constantly.”
One tree in their front yard blew over in such a way that it shielded the largest window in their two-story home and kept it from breaking, she said. After the eye of the storm passed, they felt the wind change direction and pick up strength, and they began to worry.
After the wind had passed, the water was just seeping in, and they did not realize their home would flood.
“I was trying to mop it up with towels, but that wasn’t working,” she said.
It wasn’t long until the acrid water was 4 feet deep and some of her cooking pots were floating around her living room.
William left for a boat and found one across the street. He couldn’t find the key for it and it had a small leak, but the family piled in and William began towing them to higher ground. At one point they were bailing water out of the leaky boat with a flowerpot, she said.
They were eventually evacuated and made it to a motel in Shreveport. They were there four days before finding the last rental vehicle in the town.
“Right now, we’re just so grateful to be here and to have a roof over our heads,” Kim Ayers said.
She said finding employment and stable housing are her family’s top priorities. Meanwhile, their landlord in Louisiana is demanding that they return to remove their things from the destroyed home, she said.
Another family
Port Townsend resident Sam Kirk said his parents were holed up in their apartment in New Orleans for four days before being evacuated. They thought they were headed to Texas, he said, but ended up in Arkansas. After a cousin put him in touch with them, he talked them into coming here.
Kirk said that with the help of Port Townsend Christian Church and his supervisor Tom Bearman at Pacific Office Equipment, they were able to put together enough money to get them up here.
“They’re loving it up here,” Kirk said, so they could be here quite awhile.
Kirk said their needs are basically met, though his mother could use some clothing.
Traffic both ways
As families arrive here, others are leaving to head toward the disaster site to help. Judith Walker and Candice Cosler plan to leave this weekend in a Subaru station wagon loaded with infant clothing, water purifiers and other supplies, said Cosler, a member of the Port Townsend Peace Movement (PTPM).
They will join six other Townsend residents who left Sept. 7 in two buses powered by biodiesel to help transport evacuees from the Astrodome in Houston to places farther east – places where they want to be.
The PTPM sponsored the buses along with New Old Time Chautauqua. Cosler said members of those organizations here are working to find out where the volunteers onboard the bus could set up shop to help pitch in with the relief effort there. Cosler said it would likely be one of the more rural areas hit by Katrina that isn’t getting enough attention as the nation focuses on New Orleans.
On Tuesday, however, the buses were in downtown New Orleans, helping a refugee check whether his pets were still alive, Scott Landis told The Leader in a cell phone conversation.
Landis, who helped to drive a bus, said the Jefferson County crew has been continually shocked by the devastation. He could not help but cry as he described the plight of one woman they drove from Houston to Baton Rouge. The woman, in her 30s, had been separated from her three children as emergency workers forced them onto different buses as they left the Superdome.
“There’s a lot of stories right now where people just get separated from their families,” Landis said over a scratchy cell phone. “It’s just so frustrating.”
Ellen Crockett, Disaster Services manager for the Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the American Red Cross, said the Red Cross is in dire need of more health services professionals to volunteer to go down there.
She said that nationwide, they’ll need 40,000 workers over the next six weeks. She asked any doctors, nurses, emergency medial technicians or mental health professionals who wish to volunteer to call her at 385-2737.
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