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Healing Hearts and Homes 24 Months Later

Written: 8/10/2007

While looking over the waves as they calmly move along the shoreline, it is hard to believe the devastation that still surrounds the entire Gulf region from Hurricane Katrina.

It has been 24 months since Hurricane Katrina destroyed lives and property in August of 2005.  There are so many areas of devastation where lives are on hold waiting for a new home or repairs that are desperately needed on their existing homes.  The constant noise of hammers and workers on one street and the deafening silence from the lack of workers on the other are a constant scene in the Gulf Coast. 

In June, Bishop James R. King, Jr. and various members of the extended cabinet of the Kentucky Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church went on a mission trip to Pass Christian, Mississippi.  The citizens in Pass Christian are so wonderful with a spirit of hope and love.  But under the smiles are the pain and struggles of waiting for some help to arrive.  Many streets in some areas are coming together with even the ice cream truck driving down the street with the bell ringing to attract the children who have moved back in.  But in so many countless areas there are the white FEMA trailers that have become so commonplace that you notice when you come across a street and they are gone and individuals are back into new homes.

The cabinet mission team stayed at First United Methodist Church in Pass Christian, where the church has been utilizing their classrooms as dorm rooms for volunteers over the past two years.  Miss Jocelyn McBride is a volunteer coordinator for First United Methodist and helps many members of the community gain assistance from volunteers who come to Pass Christian.  Miss McBride is also utilizing the Kentucky Conference Disaster Response RV as her home and drives the Kentucky Conference tool truck for use in the afflicted Gulf area.  Miss McBride had the cabinet divide up into teams to work on different projects while in Pass Christian.

Bishop King, Becki Curry, Julie Hager Love, and Charlie Douglas helped to finish hanging dry wall for Mrs. Marie Donaville, a resident of Pass Christian who has a newly built home.  Her home was completely destroyed and wiped away after the storm.  Mrs. Donaville has a home that is very close to being completed but is still living in her FEMA trailer in front of the house as she continues to wait for the new home to be ready for her to move into.  “The helpers are so badly needed in this area and there are so many residents that are still waiting for the electrical, plumbing or other work to be done to their new homes before they can move back in.  We thank you and appreciate so much the work that folks are doing for us down here,” says Mrs. Donaville.

Another group consisting of Coleman Howlett, Mike Powers, and Darren Brandon laid ceramic tile in the kitchen, foyer, utility room, and bathrooms for Sharonda Bell and her three children.  Sharonda’s home had to be completely rebuilt from only a surviving frame of the original house that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.  Ms. Bell said that is has been such a blessing for her to see so many people who have stopped their lives to come down to the Gulf area to help all those who are in need of help. After completing the tile work for the Bell’s home, Howlett, Powers, and Brandon rebuilt on a Pump House for Mrs. Charlotte Fairley.  Mrs. Fairley is an elderly widow who has been living inside a FEMA trailer with her disabled adult son Jason since Hurricane Katrina completely destroyed their home.  The house is still sitting on the property and is waiting to be demolished before any new construction can begin.  Her pump house in the back of the property had to be completely demolished due to the damage from the flood waters that rose in their area of Pass Christian.  In sweltering heat, the team completely tore down and rebuilt the new Pump House for Mrs. Fairley along with a new concrete floor for the structure.  Charlotte Fairley and her son Jason said there is such a great need and how grateful they are for all the hard work that everyone is doing to help the needs of those who live in Pass Christian.

Michael Watts, Tom Smith, Dale Carden, Tom Eblen, Kevin Evers, Jay Smith, Terry Reffett, and Lowell Ogden completely insulated the home of Ricardo and Melissa DeDeaux and also helped to do some drywall insulation.  The DeDeaux family were not only victims of having their home washed away from the flooding of Hurricane Katrina, but they also were victims of contractor abuse.  Construction on their new home started last summer when the contractor they had hired left town with thousands of dollars of their money they had paid in advance to cover supplies, materials and time.  Left with very little money, the DeDeaux’s home was only framed with roof and exterior sides completed when the contractor left town.  The same contractor did this to four other families in the Gulf area as well.  Ricardo, Melissa, and their children have been relying on volunteers, friends and family to help them complete their home ever since that time as they try to live a normal life out of their FEMA trailer.  Melissa said that she “feels that so many people see a picture of a home in the Gulf area that has been rebuilt and they just assume that all of the homes have been rebuilt when that is not the case at all.  I know so many of the families who are in need in the Gulf Coast.  We have been taking it one day at a time knowing that eventually we will be able to move into our new home.” Melissa said the news coverage that is still left in the media focuses on New Orleans when there is such a great need in so many other areas of afflicted areas.

Paige Williams and Verna McKinney cooked and provided food for the team and more importantly shared their time with various residents of Pass Christian.  Sharing tears and prayers, Paige and Verna touched many lives in Pass Christian with comfort of God’s presence with their prayer ministry.

With love and determination, volunteers continue to arrive in this area to help in any way that they can.  But with a total of around 4,000 homes in just the Pass Christian area that were either destroyed or badly damaged, only 300 homes have been repaired or completed.  So many people in the community are still in a struggle with their insurance companies for assistance while they continue to pay on a home that is gone except for the lot it used to sit on.  As the clean-up phase of Hurricane Katrina is over, volunteers are needed in Pass Christian and the entire Gulf area that have the skills to help build or repair the homes.  Hurricane Katrina caused over 1,300 deaths, 230 in Mississippi alone, and left over 100,000 Mississipians to live in FEMA trailers and thousands more displaced.  In the state of Mississippi 65,000 homes were totally destroyed, with over 200,000 receiving various degrees of damage.

It can become so overwhelming as you travel around the community of Pass Christian when so many areas look like the hurricane struck just 2 weeks ago instead of 2 years ago.  When you view the damage and see how the community is trying to move on with everyday life, you can forget that this is just one small community out of the entire Gulf area that has been affected by Hurricane Katrina.  The love and grace of the residents of the Gulf area is what makes being a volunteer so wonderful.  It is a humble feeling to see how excited someone becomes as they see the progress being made to their home.  Volunteers are needed all year round and this work will be continuing for years.  Because so many homes have to be reconstructed up on either wood or concrete stilts, Habitat for Humanity cannot work on the homes because of the danger of working up 8 feet high or higher which many areas require now for reconstruction.  Another struggle for many residents in the Gulf area is the fact that some contractor abuse took place right after Hurricane Katrina with unkept promises of homes to be built and leaving before a job was completed with the thousands of dollars that the residents had paid to them.  So many stories were shared of surviving the storm and losing so much, including family members and friends.

There are also incredible stories of humbleness of individuals feeling so blessed with the FEMA trailer that they call “home” parked outside of their destroyed house.  United Methodist volunteers are making a difference every day as they help heal hearts and homes in the Gulf area and remind individuals that they are never alone.  As Hurricane Katrina fades farther into history, there is even a greater need for more volunteers to come to the Gulf area to help who are skilled and unskilled.  Labor that is needed throughout the region includes metal and shingle roofing, hanging and finishing drywall, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, cooks, carpentry, and laborers to help the skilled. Mississippi United Methodist Churches and Camps have hosted over 30,000 volunteers over the last year, creating millions of dollars worth of homeowner savings for communities in Mississippi alone.  Much work is still to be done with volunteers that will be needed for years to come.  There is a sense of despair in the Gulf region that their communities will never look the same as before the storm.  But there is an even greater sense that the Gulf region will become new again with the help of brothers and sisters from around the country as lives and communities are rebuilt. 

If you or your church would like to help in the Gulf area, please contact Rev. Julie Hager Love, Director of Connectional Ministries, at 800-530-7236 or email at jlove@kyumc.org. Resources and video can also be found at www.kyumc.org. For additional resources for the Mississippi area, visit www.seashoredistrictumc.org.

Kevin D. Evers

View pictures from the trip here.
Download video here.