After Katrina: hope in the midst of tears
Rosary students at a student meeting during a lunch period shortly after the school re-opened in New Orleans. Student leaders organized student participation to collaborate with New Orleans citizens in political action demanding repair of the levees by June, 2006.  |
| Maureen Maureen Jennings (parent of Rosary student), Muriel Cameron, rscj, Lillian Conaghan, rscj at site of levee break. We are looking towards the 9th ward which was severely flooded, a population of 100,000lived in this area and is now displaced all over the USA.  |
| Rosary students at Duchesne in Houston  |
| Muriel Cameron, RSCJ and Lynne Lieux, RSCJ at "The Rosary in Exile"
campus in physical fitness center in Grand Coteau | |
Three months ago, August 29, 2005, the worst natural disaster in the memorable history of the USA occurred when hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. For over two months RSCJ, their colleagues and students of the Academy of the Sacred Heart (The Rosary) lived in exile. The largest concentration of the Rosary community was in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, the second largest in Houston, Texas, while countless other students and families were absorbed into Network schools all over the US. In each case Sacred Heart schools welcomed students tuition free and families open hearts and homes to evacuees.
The Thensted Center (social service center in which RSCJ have worked for more than 25 years) served as an evacuee site for some of New Orleans most abandoned citizens who had been rescued by boat, helicopter, bus, some of whom had witnessed the drowning of their friends in the desperate days following Katrina.
As of November 5th all RSCJ returned to New Orleans for the reopening of the Academy and the works of the Sophie Barat Spirituality Center. The second chapter of the Katrina story has begun, a time of viewing and absorbing the reality we knew principally from afar during “our exile”. We feel extremely blessed that the school and some of our families are located in a relatively high sector of the city so that storm damage was principally from wind and water rather than the total destruction brought about by flooding. However among faculty and students is a large percentage who lost everything: home, properties, relatives. There is hardly a family who is not offering hospitality to a friend or extended family. Close to sixty five per cent of the student population has returned, with an expected higher percentage returning in January for the second semester. We are grateful to have one of the highest student return rates in the city, a strength many attribute to the support and communication provided by the Network of Schools. The Sacred Heart sense of community was a virtual life-line.
As one traverses the city, life and death are visible neighbors. In seriously flooded sections one might confuse New Orleans for Baghdad. Broken glass, rubble, coatings of fine gray dust, vegetation and trees brown from toxic poisoning, twenty foot high piles of felled trees, streets lined with contaminated refrigerators and freezers, abandoned cars caked with mud, vast uninhabited neighborhoods, coded markings from the military , collapsed and damaged homes all call forth a deep sadness. The clean up seems endless and overwhelming. (Remember that it has been going on for over three months!) Some people who have lived thru war have commented that even in the ruin of war they did not witness such devastation and loss.
Flood waters stood for several weeks leaving behind stench, toxic mold and disease. The population has dropped from approximately 460,000 to 100,000 . Most former residents cannot come home. Half the houses in the city are not reconnected to the sewer system and lack natural gas as well. Forty percent have no electricity and a quarter of the city lacks drinkable water.
There is little infrastructure and a miniscule workforce for city services, largely due to the extreme scarcity of housing. Many citizens are still homeless and seeking bare necessities to survive. Mail takes two weeks for delivery (local, national, international) and garbage collections are weekly at most. The federal government and some non-profit agencies want to provide temporary housing but there is a lack of available land. Day laborers who do work in the city live several hours drive away in shanty tents and campers with conditions scarcely fit for the re-establishment of families and communities. Ten thousand National Guard are present. Helicopters rather than clanging streetcars and echos of jazz buzz throughout the city. Overall the city is subdued and dark with the exception of the glorious hours of clear blue winter skies. Effort to raise spirits are manifest as crowds gather for lectures, local concerts, art exhibits, even the zoo. Everyone wants to see who has returned. A well known Christmas display is a miniature of a ravaged New Orleans rather than the usual romantic Christmas village.
The city’s most serious damage was that of crumbling levees. Investigation reveals that faulty construction and failure to meet approved standards contributed to the failure of the levees. Providing levee protection against Category 5 hurricanes is crucial to the rebuilding of the city, but this very need is fraught with national political games, a high price tag and little time. Passionate concern by our Upper School students has led them to launch a local and national political campaign demanding that promised assistance and protection be forthcoming. With the next hurricane season only six months away and scientists’ claims that we are in a ten to twenty year cycle of intense hurricane activity there is desperate need for rapid response.
Economic opportunities and needs for professional services seem bleak in the wake of the drastically reduced population. Suicides have become unusually frequent. Many New Orleanians feel caught in a cloud of insecurity, but a determined spirit triumphs in others wanting to give their all to the rebuilding of a city they love. The cultural soul of New Orleans is one of exploding dance and joy, even in the face of deprivation. It is this spirit, coupled with the reality that the New Orleans is the nation’s second largest port, which prods citizens to fight for national visibility and assistance in the struggle to live, not just as individuals, but as one of the nation’s most precious cities.
How have we experienced the charism of the Society during these months? The gifts of a strong faith vision, the embracing Cor Unum from the entire international Society, deepening daily bonds of love expressed in ordinary but extraordinary times, the internal richness that belongs to the educated, compassion and hunger for justice roused as we continue to suffer with the most vulnerable citizens of our city, have all led us to humble gratitude. Our colleagues and students articulate with passion their experience of the Spirit of St. Madeleine Sophie, saying that they are part of a family which sustains them, for which they would give anything. God’s nearness is tangible in relationships, in prayer and in a fiery commitment.
We continue to ponder profound questions about true freedom, reordering our priorities, living in the present moment, solidarity with the poor, and the realization that the only lasting city is the Eternal Jerusalem.
Despite great vulnerability and a feeling of powerlessness, there has often been deep joy, for we know experientially that “the Lord is near the brokenhearted” and we believe in the victory of life over death. Not knowing the shape it will take, our hope is in the fulfillment of Advent prophecies which remind us that “the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom.” And last, but not least, we count on the continued prayers of the whole Society, not just for ourselves, but for our city.
Muriel Cameron rscj
Province of the United States
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