Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Reporting trip to disaster area * proves sobering We sped past the goofy, colorful »road sign with the image of a slot machine just after the exit for Pine Apple, Ala., a silly-sounding place. But ; the red-lettered words on the casino ; sign were sobering: “Why Not Go to : Biloxi?” Our team of four student journalists pulled into Biloxi Saturday morning and immediately pulled off the road, taken by _ what we saw. A brown RllySOn dust and a still silence Bird hung in the air. The I Four-year beach was strewn with ; print litter, bits of the . journalism choicest beachfront , student .. . . property dispersed by ! Hurricane Katrina. . Here, a swirling wind off the ‘ African coast had carried bitter despair on its sweet-smelling breezes. Here, a 25-foot storm surge had ripped through .homes that had withstood Hurricane Camille in 1969. Here, people left homeless said it could have been worse had Biloxi been below sea • level like New Orleans. From there we went to Gulfport, Miss., where few people wer» nearby, and police lines blocked the streets. Church doors had swung open, revealing soggy piles of litter. Food coming through the port had spilled to the streets, emitting a rotten stench that blanketed the city. We then saw inland Hattiesburg, Miss., where New Orleans evacuees drove Sunday night to stay at a multipurpose center on small cots next to strangers. They picked through donated clothes, jumped in line for food and eagerly shared their stories. Every downtrodden individual we ^^met along the way offered us some of ^Fwhat they had. They asked us, do you need water? Food? Gas? The Southern hospitality didn’t wear off just because they were homeless. In Mobile, Ala., as we waited in line at a gas station, other customers smiled and waved. Back here in South Carolina, the prices are higher, and no one’s smiling. We didn’t come close to losing anything but gas money. I met a man working in Biloxi who, while he was waiting for his ride to work, had to stare across the street at the refrigerated trucks he knew were filled with bodies. I met a pastor who had kept 150 •people in his Biloxi church, where they sang hymns as the water climbed the stairs up to where they were resting. I met a woman whose husband had remained in New Orleans with their pets when she made her way to safety in Hattiesburg. She hadn’t talked to him since then. That woman and her friend had been holed up in the multipurpose center shelter for six days. When I approached them, they patted the seat of a chair and said, “Have a seat.” They told me about not knowing whether they had homes back in New Orleans, and about how they had to call the Federal Emergency Management Agency themselves if they wanted help, but that they didn’t have easy access to telephones and probably l^youldn’t bother. My team was waiting for me at our meeting spot, so I wished them well and thanked them for their time. But time, to them, was just waiting to leave. They thanked me for listening and waved. I turned and walked out of the shelter, leaving the women, leaving Mississippi, leaving Katrina’s wake — to go home. church • connnuED PRom is donations and showed off a makeshift ^feshower a few of the men had built ^alongside the church. Inside the sturdy brick and stained glass that didn’t budge in the storm, Haynes walked through his mud filled church, which had been rebuilt just two years ago. While his parishioners sat outside sat in the sun, he surveyed the soggy floors and muddy pews. “This is Main Street Baptist Church.” Comments on this story? E-mail gamccocknews@gwm. sc. edu Epic humanitarian effort now underway In Biloxi and other Gulf towns, relief workers work around the clock Justin Chapura ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR BILOXI, MISS. — Alongside the extensive effort to clean up this city’s crushed cityscape, another Herculean effort — the humanitarian work — takes place in gulfs of activity amid ruined buildings and wrecked roads. The Army National Guard has been setting up numerous relief centers around Biloxi, the most recent one at a weathered supermarket, within sight of Highway 110 on Division Street at the center of town. Spcs. Aaron Andris and Terrell Jones of the 1st Battalion, 204th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, had been handling the situation on the Gulf Coast since Sunday. They endured Katrina at Camp Shelby, 80 miles from Biloxi, and headed south to outside Gulfport, Miss, to organize a relief shelter at a shopping center. “The first day there we had at least 5.000 (evacuees),” said Andris. Jones estimated that since then about 10.000 displaced residents have been utilizing the shelter and the relief supplies housed there. “We set it up real nice, and then we handed it over to the Air Guard,” Jones said. They described a near-riot situation that broke out the day before they relocated to the Biloxi store. “When you first get to a point like this, people will see it, and they’ll run up to it and grab whatever they can get,” Andris said, pointing to the supermarket behind him. A car with four women and a small child pulled up next to the soldiers, its riders frantically asking directions to a drive-thru-like supply depot. “That’s what we’re trying to ask people to do: cooperate. They know they’re going to have to wait if we’re going to have any order as desperate as people are,” Andris said.' The soldiers said the supplies being handed out here came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as individuals stopping by to leave materials they will not need as they leave town. Yet aside from the supplies, FEMA has been largely missing from Biloxi. “We were expecting a lot more FEMA presence, but we haven’t seen as much of them as we hoped,” Andris said. FEMA has come under fire in the last week for what many perceive as a sluggish response to the situation in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast. But with a hurricane as devastating as Katrina, the apologies issued by FEMA seem to echo in the soldiers’ voices. “We’re trying to do what we can, but there’s only so many of us.” , ~ Justin Chapura/ym GAMECOCK Supplies pile up in the store room of a Mississippi evacuee shelter. Anywhere the authotities and official help were absent, locals and outside groups were reaching out. Helen Stewart of the Fretwell Pentecostal Church in Perdido, Ala. was busily walking around a row of plastic tables, volunteers and church members cheerfully lined behind them giving out hot meals and whatever else they could deliver from home. “Just the need brought us here, just the need. We’re not doing anything different than anyone else,” Stewart said. Fretwell had made three trips to the area as of Saturday, the first to Pascagoula, Miss, and the last two to the supermarket. “I’d like to do it every day. As long as the funds last and as long as the gas lasts.” Aside from shipments of food to the area, Fretwell has been offering shelter for hurricane victims, Stewart said. Stewart breathed a short sigh before looking back at Biloxi residents lining up for food. She couldn’t finish her sentence before tears overcame her. “As long as we can get the gas, we will be here.” Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc. edu st. miCHflci's • conunucD froiti i 1960 s, and she vividly remembers Hurricane Camille. “When I went through Camille, I thought, ‘Nothing could be worse than this,’ and now my children are going through this,” she said. “I have a daughter that lost a house, and she is like, ‘Momma, all these years you told us about Camille, but we didn’t really fathom what you meant.” Robertson pointed out that St. Michael’s was rebuilt after Camille, and she seemed confident about the eventual restoration of Biloxi. “We will overcome,” she said, “We are strong people. You can’t knock us out. We will rebuild and move on.” One of the few buildings in Biloxi that went through the storm relatively untouched was the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Cathedral. Two priests, Rev. Tony Arguelles and Rev. Greg Barras, withstood the storm at the 102-year old cathedral. At 26 feet above sea level, the cathedral is located at the highest point in Biloxi. The flood water only came as close as a block away. “We are very lucky,” Arguelles said. “Many people are homeless. We are just very fortunate.” With no flood damage and very little wind damage at the cathedral, the priests planned to celebrate mass later that Saturday. There were also plans for smaller ceremonies throughout the community. “We have three other churches that we deal with. All of those churches were under water by eight to ten feet (during the storm). We will have mass at those churches outside on a table,” Arguelles said. “Bishop (Thomas) Rodi will be at the cathedral at five to do mass. We will see who comes. We put a little sign out to inform the people.” With little communication available, the priests had no idea about the rebuilding of the damaged churches. “We will just have to wait and see. It is a day-to-day, week-to week situation,” Barras said. Also frustrating the priests was their inability to fulfill the traditional role of the church as a provider of relief. “We can’t do anything right now,” said Arguelles. “We just aren’t set up to do anything. “It’s hard. We just had a relief group come in from Pensacola, and they wanted to use the building here. We told them that they needed to go through the police because when you start giving out food and people start gathering, you need security.” However, by offering mass, the priests hoped to console the people of Biloxi and to provide them with hope. “Today we are going to have an interesting gospel,” Arguelles said. “It is going to be talking about when only two or three are gathered in His name, God is in our midst. We really might only have two or three people at our mass.” The hurricane also brought to their minds an Old Testament reading in which the prophet Elijah sought out the voice of God. Barras said, in reference to the reading, “The mighty, destructive wind or the tiny whispering sound. Where is God? The tiny whispering sound.” About 13 miles west of Biloxi, in Gulfport, Miss., another church - First Presbyterian — stood across the street from the beach. First Presbyterian, from a distance, appeared to suffer little damage from Katrina. There was only a little debris around the church, and the structural integrity seemed intact. Upon closer inspection, the church was a skeletal structure. Everything had been blown away. No doors, windows or pews remained,' and the floor was covered with a strange assortment of flower petals. In the silence of this destroyed city, the only sound was the gentle whisper of a- breeze coming through the entrance of the church. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu ODVSSEY • COnTinUCD FROm 2 afraid of getting shot than dying of starvation.” Desperation began to set in for the group as they trudged on in the sun. An ABC news team from Dallas stopped to interview them and gave them a half-gallon of water, but couldn’t give them a ride anywhere. After hours in the burning sun, Talerico’s group reached the West Bank, where hoards of boats that had come to the city to try to rescue people were leaving because police told them there were already too many boats. One of the rescue workers picked up the group and gave them a ride to Gonzalez, La., but even then the journey wasn’t over. The worker’s car broke down on the side of the road, where they were again stranded until a woman driving by stopped to give them gasoline. He made it to LSU on Wednesday afternoon with a cell phone, two pairs of shorts, two shirts and a pair of sandals - all he has now to his name. It was days before he found out that his family was safe. “On the interstate everything was covered in water and fire. I’m just so happy to be here, to not see water, to eat,” he said. The first night he was back, he and a friend spent $80 at a hibachi bar, relieved to finally have food again. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gum. sc. edu RLumno • conunuED froid is walking down the highway, just walking and they didn’t know where they were going, didn’t have anything with them, they were just walking,” McLendon said, recounting the scenes with sadness in her voice. She even saw a man riding a horse down the highway. From New Orleans, some of the trucks went directly to Baton Rouge, some drove to another town in Louisiana, where a newspaper offered to let some of the workers stay for a night and four trucks of reporters and other “newsroom people” stopped first at the Times-Picayune’s office in the West Bank of New Orleans, which hadn’t been flooded, where they looked through desks for food and supplies, and took some computers. “It was sort of like we were looting ourselves,” she said. One truck, with several reporters and a photographer, drove back to New Orleans from the West Bank office, to document the horrors taking over the city. It is one of the most vivid memories McLendon has of the past week. “I remember seeing them going back to the truck to leave and a couple of them had their arms around each other, and I just remember thinking, ‘I don’t know if I’m ever going to see those people again.’” Days later, in the impromptu office the Times-Picayune set up in the Bon Carre building in Baton Rouge, McLendon saw the photographer, who she said looked like he had lost 30 pounds. With great relief, she ran across the newsroom to hug him, overjoyed that he was alive and well. “You kind of sign up for this when you’re a journalist, but you never think it’s going to happen,” McLendon said of living through the disaster. “It happened and it’s incredibly, incredibly scary.” Surprisingly, living through the actual hurricane was less scary for McLendon. She stayed in the Times Picayune building, built to withstand a Category 3 hurricane. Though the windows of the building are constructed to survive winds of up to 130 miles per hour, one of them still broke. “I felt pretty safe in there,” she said. “I could hear the wind — it was musical, like a man whistling a tune. It was interesting and kind of haunting in away.” The afternoon after the hurricane passed through New Orleans, the staff went outside into the city. Between 6 inches to a foot of water filled the parking lot, but the streets were dry enough to allow plenty of looting to begin. Directly behind the Times Picayune building were a clothing warehouse and a retail store. People on the streets were backing up pickup trucks to the store and filling beds with clothing and other items. “There were people carrying off sofas one cushion at a time. They looked like ants, all sort of truckin’ it out at once,” she said. After living through stressful days both in New Orleans and Baton Rouge — McLendon went four days on nine hours of sleep — she was glad to be able to go “home” to a house full of welcoming sisters. Since LSU started classes again Tuesday, McLendon moved into the house of another Delta Zeta alumni who happened to have an extra bedroom and bathroom. “I owe them so much,” McLendon said. Comments on this story’ E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu RIUER CCflTCR • EBRTIRUED FROID18 of the roof were blown off. They have no way of knowing how their home has fared since. “We weren’t expecting to be here like this,” Tyrone says. He left Marrero with only $20 in his wallet, ^and packed enough clothes for aboi^t three days. He doesn’t know how much longer they’ll stay in Baton Rouge. Maybe another week, he says. “I just want to get out, because this here is depressing,” Charlotte says. “I cried this morning.” They have only a vague notion of what to expect next, and no way of tracking down friends or family members. “Most of them are in Texas,” Tyrone says. “They’re scattered all » over. A train rolls by the convention center, its whistle howling. The couple studies it for a moment before they melt back into the crowd. , As the sun sinks into the river, the evacuees are ushered inside to meet their 7 p.m. curfew. The night deepens, and blue-uniformed U.S. Marshals begin to patrol the city, stern-faced and bristling with shotguns and M-16 assault rifles. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu I