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Why not Resources |
Staff Writer Though turning off cellular phones served as a general classroom policy, professor Ken Salzer forgot that detail this particular Saturday morning. His class, held once a week from 8 to 11 a.m., took a brief break before finishing the second half of material, then Salzer's phone rang. The familiar voice of his daughter broke through, and as he listened to her news the second half of class became much less important. Salzer left class early that Saturday, urging his collegiate students to do the same. The news not only canceled Salzer's class but ultimately canceled classes for the University of New Orleans for the remainder of the semester.
Sitting with a cup of coffee, Salzer recalled that day with a sense of shock. "At 10:30 in the morning, I went back to my class and informed them that there was a storm that was heading that way, and that they'd better go ahead and make plans. Hardly anyone was aware that it was out there, much less a threat," he said. Although Salzer followed Hurricane Katrina on the news, he did not suspect that New Orleans could be in the storm's path. "When it had first come over Florida, which was just a few days before, they first forecast it going up over Florida and maybe Georgia. Then the next day it was a little bit further to the west. Then the next day it was a little bit further to the west. Then Saturday it was coming toward us," he said. With the news of the storm and his class dismissed, Salzer hurried home to prepare. "When I left class, I called and got a Holiday Inn reservation here in Monticello," he said. "Then I went about making sure my windows were closed up, boarded up, everything that could fly in the backyard and the side yard cleaned up and put in the shed. You don't want anything to be a projectile." After securing his home in Algiers and packing his car, Salzer drove to Kenner to help his fiancée, Kathleen, secure her apartment and pack. With their affairs at home settled, the two along with Kathleen's two children headed north around 6:30 p.m. "(Hurricane Katrina) went from a Category 3 to a Category 5 by the time we stopped in Vicksburg. So it went from 115 mile-an-hour winds to 175 mile-an-hour sustained winds from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., in roughly 12 hours. We had never seen anything like that, and I was really happy we decided to get out," he said. An Indefinite Stay At 2 a.m. Sunday morning, the group reached Monticello, where reservations at the Holiday Inn awaited them. Salzer described the time as a period of disorientation. He said life became split between making a temporary home in Monticello and worrying for the condition of their homes in New Orleans. "It's very confusing at first. You're completely disoriented and the cliché 'shattered life' … that's really what you're living all of a sudden," he said. "It's like you have pieces here. Here we were making new friends and meeting new people and solving new problems and getting Jeannie (Kathleen's daughter) into school and things like that. Then you have the part that's back in New Orleans. You're trying to figure out what to do with your house and wondering whether you have a house." Though questions about the state of matters in New Orleans remained to be answered, Salzer said the welcoming spirit of Monticellonians helped him find stability. "On the Thursday after the storm hit New Orleans on Monday … they had organized a fish fry in the park. They had all of the social service agencies. They had representatives from all the schools so that you could sign up your child in school. You could get unemployment or at least apply for unemployment, we haven't gotten it yet," he said. "They had instructions on how to get to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and instructions on how to get in touch with the Red Cross. There was a state representative and the mayor and they went around and talked to everybody. So you had a chance to get a feel, and they had a chance to get a feel for what the needs were of people." The managers of the Holiday Inn even chipped in, Salzer said, by providing information about events and services for those displaced by the hurricane. "The Assembly of God church started maybe on Tuesday, certainly on Wednesday, having lunch and supper for anyone who wanted it. They were running a bus from the hotels to get people down there. I know we went down there a couple of times. They were very friendly people," he said. Salzer, Kathleen and other members of their families not only enjoyed the church members but also the chance to meet others from New Orleans who took refuge in Monticello. "It was a chance to meet other people from New Orleans and there's a certain solidarity in that too, in talking over what you're going to do with other people that have the same problem," he said.
Through attending church in Monticello, Salzer and Kathleen met Linda Webster, professor of Speech Communication at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Webster, who writes for the Arkansas Catholic Newspaper, interviewed the two and their families. After the interview, Webster approached them at church with one more question. "Wednesday we were at church, and after church Linda Webster said, 'Would you like a surprise?' I said, 'Sure.' So we all got in the car and went to her house. As soon as we got there she said, 'Here's the key, use it as long as you need to.' Now that was a very caring thing to do, a very Christian thing to do and very amazing thing to do," Salzer said. After spending six days in a hotel, the two families moved into Webster's home, which welcomed three more members of their families - their dogs. Webster, who rescues stray animals then rehabilitates and adopts them out, could offer appropriate facilities for the three pets. "Among them, they had three dogs, all being boarded at various places, so not only were the families able to spread out into more than one hotel room by accepting my invitation, but they could bring their dogs to live with them," Webster said. Relocating After offering her home, Webster moved out to allow the two families space. "I handed them the key to my house Wednesday night (Aug. 31), and went home to California Thursday night, after teaching my classes, for an extended Labor Day visit with my ancient parents and a family wedding," she said. Upon her return to Monticello, Webster checked into a bed and breakfast. "I'm staying in a room in a former downtown B&B during the week, then sacking out in my daughter's living room in Warren when I'm needed to babysit or during the weekends when there is someone actually home to cook meals! Most of my clothing and personal papers are stacked in a corner at her house as well," she said. Assessing the Damages On Sept. 5, Salzer and Kathleen returned to New Orleans to see their homes for the first time since the hurricane. "It's a mess. New Orleans has never had anything like that. We've had storms before but you drive down some streets--the wind came from the north--and all of the telephone poles are at about a 45 degree angle," Salzer said. "Some roofs are off. Some roofs are on. There's a lot of just random damage all over the place. In my neighborhood, most houses look okay but several of them just collapsed. Just fell down. The wind was terrible." Of the two homes, Kathleen's received the most damage, Salzer said. Her apartment experienced damage from the storm and looters. "It was looted by somebody who wanted just entertainment equipment," Salzer said. "It was flooded up about knee-high so we had to drag out all of the mattresses and sofa and all of that and had to clean the bottom of cabinets, the bottom of closets and pull out all the carpets because the water was filled with sewage. We had to Clorox everything afterward. "The water was contaminated in the pipes so there was no way to wash anything. Most of the stuff we just threw out and a lot of the stuff that was on the floor, like speakers and things like that, we just threw away. They (looters) broke down the front door so we had to barricade the front door afterward." Though Kathleen's apartment received more damage than Salzer's house, one task proved easier at her home than his. "Her refrigerator was better than mine because she had electricity that came on when we were cleaning out her house, but my house never did have electricity. We waited until everything had frozen in the freezer and was chilled in the bottom to clean her refrigerator, so that was better," he said. "At my house, we went in, and I opened the freezer, and a chicken slid out and splattered in the floor. It went back to sort of its egg stage, and it was sadly stinky." They buried the rotten food. "We dug holes in the backyard and put everything really stinky in the holes that were about four by four by three feet deep. Then the stuff in jars and things like that we put in big bags and put it out at the edge of the neighborhood where it wouldn't offend most people," Salzer said. After looking around his house, Salzer discovered it had not been looted and only suffered a little roof damage. Safety from looting, he said, came from his neighbor. "We have a policeman that lived down the block and he and his family were there," he said. "They said they had to shoot at some people because they started burning down somebody's house at the corner. There was just complete lawlessness, not a good side of humanity." Though Kathleen lost some electronics, her dressmaking equipment remained undamaged. "She may be able to continue her bridal and tailoring business without buying new equipment which is a relief to all of them," Webster said. As for Kathleen's apartment, she plans to move into a friend's house until things are sorted out, Salzer said. Finding Stability Even in recalling the experience of escaping a hurricane and striving toward a day of homecoming, Salzer sits across the table with his coffee and even occasionally smiles or laughs in conversation. When asked about his stability, he replies with ease. "Well, part of it is in the church and part of it is the good people of Monticello," he said. He recounts having dinner at Monticello's Kentucky Fried Chicken one night as an exemplary moment of the town's charm. "The other night we went over to KFC, and we wanted the baked chicken. They advertise it on national television. Well, they didn't have it, but the lady was really nice, and after we sat down she came and brought us over some fried pies. She said, 'I'm very sorry I didn't have the baked stuff, but would you all like some of these?'" he recalled. "That kind of friendliness and consideration you wouldn't find in a big city, but you do find it in a town like this. I think Monticello is exceptional in its welcoming all of the people who were cast up on the shore here." He stops for a moment, seeming to allow a deeper thought to surface. "Faith really means believing when there's no reason," he said. "When you have no logical reason to believe that something good will come of it but believing anyway, and that's the status we find ourselves in right now. This is a real life test of faith. "I think I can see God's hand caring for us here. I have to think that for Dr. Webster the Holy Spirit moved her heart to do a tremendous act of generosity and love and care. Here (in Monticello) you all do have a strong faith community in this town, and it shows in the way that people act just in everyday life. I know they're not just putting it on just for new people that are coming to town. It's real." Salzer said he found a motivating message to go home and help with rebuilding in the scripture reading at church, a reading he was asked to perform. "The reading in church, I went today, was from Ezra. It was about King Cyrus giving instructions that Jerusalem should be rebuilt, and the men of Israel should return, and they should be given what they need to rebuild Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. So, I saw that as some prophetic word of what should be done," he said.
Despite a strong desire to return to New Orleans, the possibility of other
storms blurs the future, Salzer said, but he looks toward the day he can be
home again.
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