Diocese continues to send volunteers to Gulf Coast

Reality is hitting survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, according to a second team of workers sent by Catholic Charities of the Albany Diocese to help them.

The first team that traveled to Baton Rouge in September encountered many people still in shock. The second team told The Evangelist that the evacuees they met in the past three weeks are facing different issues: unemployment benefits running out, uninhabitable homes, medical problems and long-term emotional trauma.

The team was made up of Kristen Simmons, Angela Gray and Susan LeMorta from Catholic Charities Disabilities Services, and volunteer Sharon VanKuren, who is a social worker.

Horrifying scenes

Many survivors wanted to leave Louisiana -- or had to. The volunteers would get the names and addresses of out-of-state relatives, and verify the relatives' locations and that they would welcome the evacuees.

Then the volunteers would help evacuees get bus tickets or gas cards -- even car repairs if necessary -- to get them to their destination.

Survivors who stayed behind often found horrifying sights awaiting them at their former homes. One family whose 95-year-old aunt had refused to evacuate discovered her body in their flooded home. Not knowing when she could be buried, they tied her body to the shower-curtain rod to make sure it didn't float away after they left.

"Just imagine doing that," said Ms. VanKuren.

Ms. LeMorta, a nurse, told The Evangelist that one woman she helped had spent six days sitting on a rooftop waiting to be rescued, along with her 125-pound pet Rottweiler. The woman had contracted a parasite from the contaminated water and needed antibiotics.

Emotional time

Amid what the volunteers described as "a range of emotions from despair to anger," there was also much that was positive. All four said they were impressed by the faith of those they met.

"If [our] roles were reversed, I could only pray I have the faith these people have," Ms. Simmons stated. "There's still a lot of hope."

Ms. VanKuren recalled the example of a 95-year-old woman she provided services for. Blind and unable to walk, the woman had been evacuated with only the clothes on her back, first to Texas, then to Arkansas. Her niece saw her on television coverage of the hurricanes and came to rescue her.

"Young lady," the woman told Ms. VanKuren, "I didn't know I could jump for joy -- but I jumped for joy!"

Northern exposure

The volunteers said the people were surprised that workers would come all the way from the Albany Diocese to help them.

"Catholic Charities of Baton Rouge cannot say enough about Catholic Charities here," Ms. LeMorta remarked. "We're the only Catholic Charities agency going down there to assist."

Sister Maureen Joyce, RSM, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Albany Diocese, began to cry as she described how eagerly her staff leaped at the chance to help those in need. She refers to it as "willingness to go into the 'great unknown.' People responded without a lot of thought, saying, 'This is where we should be.'"

Gratitude

Each of the team members said she was grateful to have gone to Baton Rouge, although the emotional impact of the devastation they saw is still sinking in:

* Ms. LeMorta is trying to spend more time with her grandchildren. She regrets "all the little complaints" she's made in her life, like the inconvenience of New York's winter snowstorms. "The people down there have lost everything -- things that can never be replaced," she said. "Those people's voices...I still hear them."

* Ms. Gray is still struggling to get back into the routine of her work as a service coordinator and can't help worrying about the many charities helping on the Gulf Coast whose budgets are beginning to run out. "Next month, what are people going to do?" she wondered.

* Ms. Simmons said she "grew more as a person in three weeks than in the last three years. I'm forever grateful for the opportunity" to have volunteered in Baton Rouge, "and my faith is forever changed."

On a more mundane note, she confessed that even though her Guilderland home is on a hilltop, she's considering flood insurance. "The probability of a flood is minute," she admitted, "but you never know."

(A third team from the Albany Diocese is now in Baton Rouge: Disabilities Services employees Megan Adams and Sandra Brown; and volunteers George Smith, a retired professor from Union College in Schenectady, and Suzanne Allegretti, a chaplain at Seton Health/St. Mary's Hospital in Troy. Catholic Charities will keep sending replacement teams every three weeks at least until April. For information about volunteering, call 453-6650.)

More on Katrina relief

* Ten families and individuals affected by Hurricane Katrina have relocated to the Albany Diocese, and are settling in Albany, Rensselaer and Schenectady counties.

Each has a Catholic Charities staff member assigned to help with jobs, health care, housing, food and other issues.

Many parishes in the Diocese have also "adopted" families or parishes of hurricane survivors. The latest is St. Ambrose Church in Latham, which is partnering with St. Thomas parish in Long Beach, Mississippi.

* The group from the Albany Diocese estimates that they assessed 100 people a day in their time in Baton Rouge.

The four did "intake assessments": helping survivors to fill out FEMA applications, host families to pay their utility and water bills, survivors who had found apartments to pay their first month's rent, and those who had lost everything to replace such necessities as glasses and dentures.

* To fight burnout, Ms. VanKuren held a "debriefing" session for the Baton Rouge staff, talking about compassion fatigue. Two members of the Albany diocesan team also made it a point to pray together every morning as a means of sustaining themselves.

They said they "can't imagine" how their peers in Baton Rouge are managing to work six or seven days a week.

* The plight of undocumented people on the Gulf Coast is a huge problem. The volunteers said that Catholic Charities discovered a warehouse in New Orleans where hundreds of illegal aliens were hiding, too afraid to go to FEMA or the Red Cross for help.

A vehicle was dispatched to bring water and medicine to them.

* Such extreme poverty existed in Louisiana long before the hurricanes hit that the team from the Albany Diocese said some residents are actually better off now.

"They have food, a place to sleep and more cash than they ever had in their lives," said Ms. Simmons.

Sister Maureen finds that appalling. "It's a tragedy that assistance from the Red Cross, FEMA and Catholic Charities can be characterized as an improvement on the life they had," she stated. "It's an indictment on our society. [It's time for] the people in economic power to do something about this."

Catholics in the Albany Diocese have donated more than $1.1 million to hurricane relief efforts. To help, send checks payable to Catholic Charities, with "Hurricane Katrina" in the subject line, to 40 N. Main Ave., Albany, NY 12203. (KB) 

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