Hudson woman helps Hurricane Katrina victims
Editor's note: A woman who went to New Orleans to help with Hurricane Katrina clean-up found things she expected -- and many more that surprised her.
These are the first half-month of Karine Wilson's daily entries in a diary e-mailed to family and friends back home. They are presented in order, but edited for space and clarity, by Catholic Herald correspondent Joe Winter. Wilson, of Hudson, is a member of St. Patrick Parish:
Pulling into Mobile with my artist friends who are helping me, I see that almost every tree seems to have damage ... branches missing, stripped or leaning. On the local radio, the announcer says, "A luxury boat was ready to head out to Honduras when Hurricane Katrina hit, and was removed from land today, after workers dug a 50-foot canal for the boat, to return it to the sea."
A newspaper headline read, "Medical records finally recovered," from a clinic in the area.
It wasn't until driving further that the damage made my jaw drop open. For miles the story is the same. Many gas stations, local stores and homes in Biloxi are collapsed on themselves, I see a home half-standing at a 45 degree angle.
Piles of garbage and debris are everywhere, including on sidewalks. In contrast, lots of people are back in the neighborhoods, and there is plenty of traffic driving around, major stores have reopened, and trailers are parked where homes used to be.
Many people are still living in tents, as well as trailers. A neighbor who is living in a tent under a bridge came by our campfire -- actually a burning barrel -- last night handing out gifts to volunteers. They included a Casio keyboard he found in a garbage pile and got working, flashlights and some candy he bought at Wal-Mart. Although his living situation is still grim, he was in high spirits and laughing, telling jokes and cheering us up.
Our volunteer group went shopping to Lowe's this morning. I was put in charge of picking out bathroom fixtures, while others were assigned to different projects. Trying to find simple toilet paper holders, for example, was actually difficult. While higher priced and fancy items were available, it was a bit harder to find the already sold-out inexpensive and simple items, and that's what this thrifty shopper was looking for.
Aisles were lined up with items to be placed on shelves as fast as customers bought them. Most importantly, the employees were friendly amidst the chaos, willing to help and go the extra mile. Trucks were lined up outside, six-deep in line, to pick up their lumber, doors and large items.
On the drive to Lowe's, the monk-in-residence at the Buddhist temple we were rehabbing told me of its hurricane story. When a giant wave of water crashed into Biloxi, the temple had visiting monks and different guests gathered for their "very special dedication and opening ceremony."
The unusual number of guests, nearly 50 of them, raced to the attic and sat there overnight. The next day when they were finally rescued, (could you imagine hearing the noises and still sitting there in the dark?), they said their greatest fear had been that the water would rise even higher, and they wouldn't be able to break through the tile roof above them.
The temple was almost destroyed, the finishing touches are being completed now, nearly four months later.
This volunteer camp has split and opened another "brother camp" just outside of New Orleans and will be closing its work here in Biloxi soon, relocating all of the major equipment that has been donated so far. Yesterday, groups delivered clothes, donations, food and trucks to other organizations.
Last night around the fire, I was able to talk to volunteers who are helping families. One of them, named Sue, said that many of the poorest situations now are people who don't speak English very well. One couple asked her to listen to a phone message they had received. It was from FEMA, which had a trailer for them. If they had been able to understand the message, they would have had a trailer the next day. But the message was indecipherable, and they had sat not knowing help was only a returned-phone call away.
We then met with a group of almost 50 volunteers from River Falls who were helping do major structural repair a Baptist church -- and sleeping at night on chairs that were put together. Many said they didn't want to resume studies at the university back home, they wanted to continue their volunteer work.
We bulldozed a house yesterday for the Army Corps of Engineers, since there were some legal reasons they couldn't do it. We also cleared a woman's driveway this morning. Apparently the housing inspector wouldn't come back to her house if he couldn't get in the driveway, so we brought out all the heavy equipment and had all the clean-up done in two hours.
Twenty-plus volunteers working with the sunlight and often into the evening, won't be enough to clean up all of Biloxi, but they sure have made a difference in this neighborhood today.
A truckload of blankets delivered yesterday has dwindled down into a small pile. Passers-by stop and ask what is being done, and one noted that the temple again looked shipshape -- after he had helped construct it for four years.
The temple "hosting" workers in Biloxi has let them put up a large white geodesic dome in their parking lot, while they work on trim and painting. The large dome was formerly used as the free grocery, and now holds many worker-volunteers personal tents, with futon mattress and lots of pillows and blankets. The temperature last night here was about freezing.
I got the "golden" opportunity to prime and paint four large columns inside the main temple. Golden, because that would be the final color. On Monday, I would be ready to finish the last layers of gold paint and some trim.
Editor's note: Information on the nonprofit organization Wilson started for Katrina relief can be found at www.grassrootskatrina effort.org.
Vietnamese church gets volunteer help
By Joe Winter
Catholic Herald correspondent
HUDSON -- When Hurricane Katrina struck, the pastor of one of the few remaining functional Catholic churches in the New Orleans area was precariously out in a boat on the bay.
Just like he had been years ago when trying to escape persecution in Vietnam, long before he hooked up with Karine Wilson, from Hudson, and her friends, who helped the congregation rebuild their church.
As Katrina blew in, Fr. Dominic Phan Duc Dong once again found himself aboard a fishing boat seeking refuge. Though many fishermen thought they could ride out the hurricane, many never returned to relate their stories. Phan was among the lucky few who did.
The congregation of Biloxi's Catholic Vietnamese Martyrs Church included more than 320 families before the hurricane. Phan said that most of the families are still in need.
As their church is the only Catholic building still able to be occupied along the coastline of Biloxi, they hold their own Mass at 9 a.m. on Sundays. St. Michael's Parish of Biloxi borrows their space to hold their Mass at 11 a.m. each weekend.
There has been a tremendous amount of work done at the Catholic Vietnamese church to prepare it for the use, Wilson said. Lutheran groups from the area, the Canadian Navy, Hands on USA volunteers, and students from a college from Connecticut helped clean out the building and surrounding yard so it could be used.
Phan was more than delighted to show Wilson the stained glass windows that have been salvaged, she said, although he added their "window of Divine Mercy" was beyond repair.
She was also was also introduced to a man from Michigan who was volunteering, currently mopping out a back storage room. Four months following the hurricane, there is still no power inside the church, and they are using extension cords that drape across their lawn and parking lot, Wilson said.
Many parts of the church still need repair, but the pews have been temporarily replaced with folding chairs. Considering the neighborhood demolition and debris, the church is coming along quite well, but much work still needs to be done, Wilson said.
Phan said these are the main needs to recover: A front door (or money to order one), a photocopy machine, a washer and dryer, a new organ, and a sound system. The pews alone will cost more than $87,000 to replace, he said.
As for anyone who can volunteer or help, Phan says, "at least people will know there is still someone who cares."
In 1971 he joined the Vietnamese Army as a military chaplain. In 1972 his sector was attacked by a division of Vietnamese Communists, and they lost thousands of men. In 1975, the Communists came into South Vietnam and on May 4, 1975, he left Vietnam in a fishing boat.
For five days and nights with no compass and no map, they sailed until they reached the Philippines. He spent two weeks in Puerto Princess, the capital of Palawan Province, and then spent the next two months at Subic Bay, an American base in the Phillipines.
Shortly afterward, he transferred to Guam where someone helped him find a church in Arkansas that needed help. This was his first introduction to the United States, and Phan worked as a priest in Kansas City for 10 years, before coming to Biloxi. He has been there since 1985.
© Superior Catholic Herald, 2006