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Debbie Haff was among the
American Red Cross volunteers who were first deployed to
Louisiana
and
Mississippi one day after the region was rocked by Hurricane Katrina at the end of
August two years ago.
For more than two weeks, Haff
worked as a shelter co-manager at
Picayune
High School , which housed almost 500 people that first night. In October, she plans
to return to the area and catch up with some of those she met in the
storm's aftermath.
"I'm going down to visit
people who were in the shelter," she said. "We have kept in
close contact with some of the families."
In the past, some of those
families, if they didn't hear from Haff every so often, gave her a call
just to see how she was doing.
In the first three weeks after
Katrina, the 87-person team from the Sussex County chapter made up one
half of New Jersey's volunteers sent to help the storm victims rebuild
— a process that is continuing two years later. When the rest of the
state caught up,
Sussex
County
still accounted for a quarter of the workforce.
Though the county is no longer
officially involved in the Gulf, some residents and Red Cross members,
including Haff, a Fredon resident and former
Kittatinny
Regional
High School
learning consultant, have returned to the region to help on an
individual level.
Others, like Mary Hofmann, a
Red Cross volunteer from
Vernon , never got to see the hurricane's trail of destruction but she did see
its aftermath. Despite her requests to help with the clean-up efforts,
Hofmann stayed behind to continue helping with the training of more than
200 new volunteers.
"We worked at getting
people out the door," Hofmann said. "But by the time we
started getting our people out the door, we started getting people
coming in the door form
Louisiana
and
Mississippi
looking for assistance."
They were people displaced from
their homes who had made their way up to the area, either to seek out
family or simply because that is where the road took them. There was one
woman, Hofmann recalled, who had lost her home and had hitched a ride
with her boyfriend, a trucker whose next assigned run was to New Jersey.
Even
Sussex
County , more than 1,000 miles removed from the catastrophe, was providing
shelter, food, money and most importantly volunteers to those who needed
it.
"It was a huge thing and
our chapter had an absolutely huge response," Hofmann said.
"The good of people is just so amazing to see."
A war zone
Volunteering for weeks on end
in response to one of the country's worst ever natural disasters is not
an easy task for anyone. But for Jack Card, a Sussex Borough resident
and retired state park ranger, the event was especially harrowing and
"totally different from a lot of other people."
"It was really something
that I was not prepared for," Card said. "I'm a
Vietnam
veteran, and this came about as close to the war as I have ever
seen."
Card served his three weeks
working as a safety and security officer all over the state of
Louisiana
, driving 250 to 300 miles each day to help local law enforcement
"check out" shelters, services and workers. As he was driving,
Card said he could look out the window and see Blackhawk military
helicopters refueling in the air. He saw Marines entering
New Orleans
, which was still under martial law at the time and inaccessible, and he
saw a looter get shot "pretty much right in front of me."
"It was like the wild west
for awhile," Card said.
Though his experience with the
local people was generally limited, Card's car was always loaded with
rations, bottled water and teddy bears. For him, one tour was enough.
"They asked me if I would
stay, but quite honestly, I was burned out. I couldn't do it," he
said. "I'm sure we (his family) will go back to
New Orleans
one day and enjoy the city."
Making the return
Other volunteers have already
made the return trip several times.
After the Red Cross' initial
response, Haff and fellow volunteer Leslie Fedo, who moved to
Mississippi last year, returned several times to assist with shelters,
schools and others who still need help.
Both Haff and Fedo made their
first return around Christmas in 2005, when they collected $20,000 worth
of toys and Wal-Mart gift cards and distributed them to families and
children. On a second trip, Haff said money was raised to buy a washing
machine and dryer for a handicapped man who was living in a FEMA
trailer. Half of the money was raised by Kittatinny's Future Business
Leaders of America team.
A new project will help to
boost the spirits of some war veterans in the region's hospitals. She is
trying to purchase 150 American flags, which will be folded and encased
in the military style with a poem included. Haff's plan is to send the
flags to the hospitals by Veterans Day in November "just as a
little remembrance."
"It's still a very sad
situation," Haff said. "People are becoming ill. A lot of
people could barely afford their houses to begin with ... and now they
can't afford to rebuild them."
Haff still makes frequent trips
back to the rebuilding region, but she still lives in
Sussex
County . Fedo, however, was drawn back so strongly, she felt she had to take up
residence in the area she now continues to help. The former
Lake
Hopatcong
resident has lived in
Ocean Springs
,
Miss. , for a little more than a year. She has worked at schools and continued
to volunteer with the
Biloxi
,
Miss. , Red Cross chapter and just this month began a full-time job with the
hurricane recovery program.
"After being down here
after the hurricane, I decided this is where I wanted to be to help
out," Fedo said. "People tell me I'm crazy ... but I truly
believe in my heart that this was all part of the 'bigger plan' for me.
Down here, the less you have, the more thankful you are.
"We're still not 100
percent recuperated from Katrina. There's still a lot of work to be
done. We're doing the best we can to help people recover."
The biggest need in the area
now is for fresh volunteers. While many, such as Fedo, are still down
there, they are "getting tired."
New ways to help
Not all those who responded to
the disaster were affiliated with the Red Cross.
Sara Tonnesen, a resident of
Frankford and graduate of
High Point
Regional
High School
, is currently a student a
Mount
Holyoke
College
in
Massachusetts and has been to the Gulf region three times as a volunteer with the
Louisiana-based Emergency Communities program.
Last summer, she spent a week
helping out in
Buras
,
Miss.
, an experience that so moved her, she recruited 25 college classmates
to join her for three weeks in
New Orleans over a winter break in January. Over the summer, she went back again,
this time by herself to live for six weeks in the city's lower Ninth
Ward, we she managed a community garden and worked at a local day care.
"I just think that it's
really important work that needs to get done and it's all getting done
by volunteers," Tonnesen said. "I think we're at a really
crucial point right now. I wish more people would come down."
Dr. Karen Dashfield, director
of the Sussex County Animal Response Team, found a way to use her animal
expertise to help a more hidden emergency. After the hurricane left its
trail of destruction, many pets were left homeless and owner-less,
wandering the streets and presenting health risks to victims and rescue
workers.
Dashfield and the response
team, in conjunction with the Human Society of the
United States
, the Best Friends Animals Society and the local Byram Animal Rescue and
Kindness Squad, began the Katrina Animal Rescue Project. More than 200
dogs and cats were housed at the Sussex County Fairgrounds until the
project was completed early this year. Local veterinarians provided
health screenings for the pets while owners or suitable foster homes
were located.
'Ready for anything'
Sussex County Red Cross
Executive Director Pat Day credits community spirit with the local
outpouring of assistance after the disaster.
"Clearly, it takes a
community working together. There's plenty of work to go around,"
she said. "The people of
Sussex
County
responded to the call for help."
In the weeks after Katrina,
people helped out wherever they could, be it by running a shelter,
security or rebuilding communities, either with the Red Cross or other
groups. The disaster actually helped to strengthen local emergency
response efforts with more than 200 new volunteers and donors having
joined.
"There's a lot of work on
an ongoing basis to make sure we're ready for anything, be it the Able
Energy explosion, the Andover Inn fire, flooding in Montague or the
house fire in
Newton the other day," Day said. "We're ready for disasters that
affect a lot of people or even just a single family. We're here for the
people of
Sussex
County
because of the people of
Sussex
County
." |
