Destroyed homes and changed lives in the South

IT’S 2 A.M. Thursday morning on Jan. 5, 2006 and a group of 46 Fresno State students are gathering on campus, set to embark on a journey that may well change their collective perception of life.

The students are boarding a bus bound for San Jose where they are to take a flight to Minneapolis, Minn. and then another to New Orleans before finally a short van will take them to neighboring Slidell, La. In Slidell they are to take on the role of young philanthropists and aid in the reconstruction of a number of houses devastated by hurricane Katrina.

I was lucky enough to be one of these students.

Upon arrival at New Orleans airport there is a general feeling of withdrawal. In sharp contrast to the airports of other major cities, this one feels desolate. Defeated. But the simple fact that airplanes come in and out of the airport shows there is still a pulse for this once great city.

In New Orleans devastation still looms in the air as the sky that only months ago unleashed the deadliest disaster in American history now lays docile and inviting overhead. And walking around, seeing the people, they wear the strain of the last four months on their face like a moustache. Disaster like this seems to give people a degree of transparency that is hard to comprehend.

THE VAN RIDE to Slidell gives us our first heavy dose of reality. We see in the late evening light the true destructive force of Mother Nature. Houses, lain to waste, line the highway. Communities once vibrant now lie barren and deserted. Cars sit abandoned next to the highway, overturned and unattended as they will apparently stay for some time. Forests of formerly lively trees, like the people here, now lie wilted and wasted, teetering and leaning on one another for support. Heaps of garbage that were once known as possessions now line every street.

In Slidell, after a long night of sleep and a groggy morning, the scene outside is eerie to say the least. It feels like a ghost town. Street after street of closed stores and demolished buildings. Piles of junk lay on the side of every road the eye falls upon. Nobody wandering the streets, and as we soon find out, hardly any locals, for apparently most of them have left.

At the local taverns and restaurants you don’t come across too many people with that unmistakable Louisiana drawl. Who you do come across are people who’ve come to Louisiana from all corners of the country to work, all sharing a similar story.

Many have sold their houses and come down to the area as skilled contractors. Most of these workers, it seems, are in high demand. But the majority seem to be little more than drifters. Nomads with no families and no ties to anywhere or anyone. Men who fly by the seat of their proverbial pants in search of the money that might pay for their next tank of gas, their next meal or their next pack of Marlboros.

THE SCENE, IN a word, is overwhelming. It’s hard to imagine how a person could come to this part of the country and not be forever changed by what they saw. This is the sentiment echoed by all of the students on this trip. Though their motives for coming on the trip may differ slightly, the emotions and experiences they will take home with them are nearly identical.

“I am really grateful for everything I have,” said Rebecca Sussman after experiencing the disaster first hand. “There are things that I have that I don’t need. I was talking to a lady and she said that you don’t know what you could live without until you have to live without it.”

It’s safe to say each student had a similar experience with a local resident. Most tended to ponder the idea that one day you could have everything you might ever want and the next it could all be taken away from you in an instant. This was no doubt an eye opening experience.

Nikole Lopez, a junior kinesiology student believes that however tragic the situation, the people in Louisiana can carry on and persevere. “I think it’s disturbing and I think that it’s sad, but I don’t think that it’s something the people can’t overcome.” She goes on to say, “I know it’s probably hard to be in a situation like this when one day you have everything you could possibly want and the next day it’s completely gone.”

“I was really shocked, because it looks a lot different than it does on TV,” said Leonard Smith, a student co-editor for the African-American insert newspaper, Uhuru Na Umoja, who said he came on the trip because he really wanted to give something back to the community. “I was shocked by buildings that were completely down, houses that had been moved across the street into other houses. Boats on the sides of the roads, cars upside down and in the water, houses in the water. If I could describe it in one word it would be shocking,” he said.

Johanna Blanks, a senior child development major said since she had such a good year, that maybe she should try to make it a better year for someone else. “This year I’ve really been blessed with things. I’ve bought my own house and got married. It’s been a really nice year for me, so I thought maybe I should do some nice things for other people.”

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