Hurricane Katrina Relief - Three and a Half Years Later
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita three years ago, the failure of the levee system in New Orleans, Lousiana was publicized, but the continuing aftermath of the storm nearly four years later has been much overlooked. Over spring break I volunteered with a non-profit group devoted to assisting the citizens of the St. Bernard Parish, located adjacent to the Lower 9th Ward. The parish was devastated by the storms in August of 2005; one hundred percent of its homes were deemed uninhabitable after the storm surge left the area with between 5 and 14 feet of standing water for weeks.
I worked on the house of Lisa Vaccarella, a police officer in the New Orleans Police Deparment. According to Ms. Vaccarella, at one point there was 14 feet of water in her house, and although the water levels were expected to go down after Katrina, then Hurricane Rita hit and brought much of the water back. She was gone from the parish for two months, until the police and fire department employees were called back. Her boss, the sheriff, provided his employees furnished trailers where Ms. Vacarella and her son have been staying for nearly four years.
She began to get “really sickly nervous” about whether she’d ever finish her house. A friend told her about the help available from the St. Bernard Project in November of 2008, so Ms. Vaccarella filled out an application. She was told that if she fixed certain aspects of the house, the project would help. With the help of her son and religious groups who came to the area to volunteer, she was able to remove all of the waterlogged furniture and gut much of the house. According to Ms. Vaccarella, without the help of the SBP, “it might have been about another year and a half before I really got in the house.”
The founders of the organization, Liz McCartney and Zack Rosenburg, traveled to the parish in the spring of 2006 to volunteer and assist the residents displaced by the storms. They found inadequate support for those looking to rebuild, and were so shocked and moved by this discovery that they decided to quit their jobs, move from Washington, DC to Louisiana, and found the St. Bernard Project. In the span of two to three months, the group is now able, with donations, volunteers, and a number of site supervisors, to make a gutted house livable for about $12,000. Most recently, Ms. McCartney was named CNN’s Hero of the Year for 2008.
Sara Romeo, a site supervisor, decided to defer from Arizona State and spend her gap year as a long-term volunteer with the project after volunteering the past April on a school trip. As she was deciding between colleges, “I realized that I’m making all these decisions like what school I am going to…or what prom dress I’m going to wear, and then I thought about how without St. Bernard Project, these families would not have a home.” It’s a year off my life; it’s not that big of a deal. One year that can make a difference in someone else’s life for years to come.”
I worked on the house of Lisa Vaccarella, a police officer in the New Orleans Police Deparment. According to Ms. Vaccarella, at one point there was 14 feet of water in her house, and although the water levels were expected to go down after Katrina, then Hurricane Rita hit and brought much of the water back. She was gone from the parish for two months, until the police and fire department employees were called back. Her boss, the sheriff, provided his employees furnished trailers where Ms. Vacarella and her son have been staying for nearly four years.
She began to get “really sickly nervous” about whether she’d ever finish her house. A friend told her about the help available from the St. Bernard Project in November of 2008, so Ms. Vaccarella filled out an application. She was told that if she fixed certain aspects of the house, the project would help. With the help of her son and religious groups who came to the area to volunteer, she was able to remove all of the waterlogged furniture and gut much of the house. According to Ms. Vaccarella, without the help of the SBP, “it might have been about another year and a half before I really got in the house.”
The founders of the organization, Liz McCartney and Zack Rosenburg, traveled to the parish in the spring of 2006 to volunteer and assist the residents displaced by the storms. They found inadequate support for those looking to rebuild, and were so shocked and moved by this discovery that they decided to quit their jobs, move from Washington, DC to Louisiana, and found the St. Bernard Project. In the span of two to three months, the group is now able, with donations, volunteers, and a number of site supervisors, to make a gutted house livable for about $12,000. Most recently, Ms. McCartney was named CNN’s Hero of the Year for 2008.
Sara Romeo, a site supervisor, decided to defer from Arizona State and spend her gap year as a long-term volunteer with the project after volunteering the past April on a school trip. As she was deciding between colleges, “I realized that I’m making all these decisions like what school I am going to…or what prom dress I’m going to wear, and then I thought about how without St. Bernard Project, these families would not have a home.” It’s a year off my life; it’s not that big of a deal. One year that can make a difference in someone else’s life for years to come.”
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