Students Spend Fall Break In Katrina Work Camps

by Rick Kuhlman, Trip Lead, Elder, Second Presbyterian Church, Knoxville

The Presbytery of East Tennessee has been busy this fall sending college students down to the hurricane ravaged Mississippi Gulf Coast. Between the University of Tennessee Knoxville and Chattanooga campuses, almost 200 students and adult support staff have made a very significant impact on this chaotic situation. The UTK trip was 13-16 Oct and the UTC trip was 22-26 Oct. Most of the work was performed in inner city Biloxi, the second largest metro area in Mississippi. The students performed a service called mucking. They entered private homes that had not been opened for 6-7 weeks and braved unbelievably foul odors and rampant mold. They walked on sopping muddy carpets to remove destroyed furniture, appliances, and all other personal effects that had been literally tossed around by the hurricane winds and up to 30 feet of water flooding into the area. After the contents were removed, the students brought in sledge hammers, crowbars, scrapers, and the like to strip the house down to the studs.

Oftentimes, the homeowners worked alongside the students as they cleaned up the mess of Katrina. The students prayed before they entered the house and again when they finished their task. The homeowner was in the circle as the prayers were given. Many times the only tears that were shed by the survivors were when these people heard the sincere prayers of the students, a wonderful spiritual experience. Thirty homes and three churches were cleaned up by our task force. In addition to the Biloxi area we had teams that worked in Ocean Springs, Gulfport, and Pearlington.

The groups of students were composed of the Presbyterian Centers of UTK and UTC as well as Campus Crusade for Christ, Reformed University Fellowship, Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church College Ministry, The Cross Greek Ministry, and other independent individuals who just wanted to serve. The associate pastor from Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, also accompanied our group. The uniting of believers for a God ordained mission was phenomenal.

We were housed at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Gulfport and allowed to use their kitchen. We brought along cooks and a nurse. We used the showers at Gulfport High School for personnel cleanup. Each evening we had worship lead by The Cross worship leader. We also worked very closely with the Presbytery Disaster Assistance, Camp Orange Grove and its leader Dr. Mark White. Mark helped us obtain our work assignments to insure no loss of time. We worked 10 hour days.

The following paragraphs are excerpts from the journal of Emily Ledbetter

Day 1

We woke up at 6 a.m. and after breakfast, my small group, which consisted of Christy Chassereau, a junior in journalism and electronic media, Chelsea Keith, a junior in speech pathology, and Beau Pederson, another junior in journalism and electronic media, set out to the home of Kathy Lawson. Having been submerged under 11 feet of water, there was very little in the house Lawson intended on keeping. Ruined clothes, photographs and furniture inhabited the house, as well as mold.

Equipped with my work gloves, facial mask, safety goggles and Vick's Vapor Rub, I set out to clean out this house with a sledge hammer and my boots. No matter how much media coverage a disaster is given, there is one thing that will never transmit over air waves: the smell. The stench of sewage and mold, with a twinge of death when the wind blew from the right direction infiltrated my nostrils no matter how big of a glop of vapor rub I used. After an hour of work, it took all I had in me to keep from smearing the vapor rub directly on my face as opposed to the inside of my mask.

Chassereau and I found that the quickest way to tear down molded dry wall is a few hits with the sledge hammer, a quick karate kick and a follow-up with a crow bar. Chassereau and Keith also discovered that emptying stagnant, toxic water left in a bathtub was the fastest route to nausea. Still, I did not hear one complaint from anyone during the entirety of the trip. The needs of the residents were held in a much higher regard than any of the volunteers' concerns for comfort. Lawson's face of relief and gratitude as she stopped back by to see our progress made the effort well worth our while.

Halfway through a day of tearing down dry wall and removing soggy carpet, I took a break to make a walk around the neighborhood we were in. This particular neighborhood had been hit quick, hard and, unfortunately, had claimed the lives of 10 to 15 residents. Outside of every home, a haunting red "X" signified which rescue group had come through and the number of living people and dead bodies found at each house. We quickly acquired a morbid yet respectful feeling of walking through these people's graves. The seriousness of the situation permeated our personas and conversation throughout the day and left me feeling more emotionally drained than the work left my body.

The still and quietness of the neighborhood as well as the lack of people clearing debris made the desperation of the situation completely obvious. Imagine if your own house had been blown over and the only people there to sort through and clean up were your family and friends. At no point in time did I see any government or military officials helping with the clean up effort. Maybe for the best. It seemed like the people had adopted a surreal personality to deal with the magnitude of the damage. The only thing we could do was keep up conversation and offer ourselves as an extra pair of hands to help.

The first time I was brought to tears was when I began to read the messages spray painted on the sides of the houses while on my walk. One message in particular caught my eye. The bright yellow words were hard to make out against the siding but as I finally came to the edge of what was left of the yard, their meaning became completely clear. The phrase "Help, 9 people trapped in attic, help" glared back at me. The situation had suddenly taken a turn for the personal as the humanity of having to wait out rescue amidst rising waters became extremely real. Along the length of Southwind Drive, there were more messages written "We are all still alive. Need rescue," "I'm safe, with Tom, I love you Mom," and one uncanny, "Goodbye In-Laws, Thank God" were hard to get out of my head as I thought of the mind frame these people were in at the time they wrote the messages.

The feeling of humbleness and humility was one discussed by everyone once we were back at the base. Our futile worries of midterms and papers were vastly overshadowed with these families' concerns with food, shelter and basic human needs. Despite my physical exhaustion, I was unable to sleep well that night and due to the lack of rhythmic breathing and snores, I would venture to say the rest of the group felt the same.

Day 2

On the second day, I had the pleasure of keeping company with local Rachel Kurtzberg, a junior at Gulfport High School whose house had been completely destroyed due to a 30 foot tidal surge. There were military check points through Gulfport and Biloxi that required a local ID to pass through due to the level of damage, toxic water and lack of clearing, but with Kurtzberg, we were quickly ushered through and made our way to where her house stood.

She explained to me that her family's house was not in the flood plain and therefore they would be collecting nothing from insurance. They were simply having to deal with damages out of their pocket. I was unsure of how to respond as we toured her house and she pointed out different areas that had been ruined by the salt water. Her shattered car sat in the front yard with shards of the garage door and a twisted washing machine accenting the immediate area surrounding it. The Kurtzberg family had lost almost everything, including all items of sentimental value, even baby pictures and home videos. We decided to leave her house and take a walk around the neighborhood.

Words escaped me as I watched Kurtzberg pick up every piece of clothing we saw to check the size and tag to see if it belonged to her or her family. She also squinted and tried to make out the remains of every photograph we passed along the way. I came to realize that this wasn't just debris spread through the streets, but literally people's lives. As we passed huge cement chunks of pavement that had been lifted out of their resting places on the road, she explained to me that she had been back to the house at least once a week since Katrina. "I know it's dumb to ask for the pain, but ..." Kurtzberg said.

I didn't ask her to elaborate, I simply listened and helped her look through items to perhaps locate a lost black choir robe she had hopes of finding. I began to discover that just listening to someone tell their story may help as much as tearing down walls and clearing toxic water. Although language failed me at times, Kurtzberg and I quickly formed a deep bond from just sharing her story. I hope I offered her some comfort despite my silence, as I know other students did while speaking with victims of the disaster.

Although I spent only one Fall Break in the disaster area, the time I was there has truly had a profound impact on my life. Already, the American population is forgetting these people of the Gulf Coast and moving on to more current events in the world. The job they are facing is of such an overwhelming magnitude, there is no way to accomplish what needs to be done without the gracious hands of volunteers and donations of people who cannot take the trip south. I wish I could have stayed longer, for only a small dent was made on a huge problem by our team of students. If lives weren't destroyed, they were drastically changed and instead of turning our backs on the problem a mere six weeks after the fact, we need to pull together for the betterment of our country and the preservation of our Gulf Coast.