Hurricane Rita: A Daily Journal
Barb Dorrington

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Introduction

Hurricane Rita arrived during the early morning hours of September 24th, 2005 and I arrived in San Antonio, TX the morning of September 26th, 2005. It was here that I joined my friend and colleague, Barb Desjardins, a vice-principal from London, Ontario, Canada. I am a school social worker in the same city. Barb had arrived the day before and had already started going into one shelter, bringing art supplies and she started the beginning of the survivor wall of art. Both if us have received trauma training from Bill Steele’s wonderful program. Hard hit areas included Lake Charles, Beaumont, and Baytown TX, and the San Antonio shelters, through Baptist Child and Family Services, serviced a special needs population for these areas. The term “special needs” was quite far-reaching and takes in mental and physical health issues including psychiatric concerns, physical disabilities, seniors, pregnant mothers, and young families where a child may have asthma. Families were usually kept together, so that means while one family member has a health issue, other family members will likely not.

The two shelters I spent time in included Levis Strauss, an abandoned jeans factory, and Lackland, a Baptist church gymnasium. Although the agency was Baptist in terms of denomination, families came from many religious denominations. There were public shelters in the area as well, such as Kelly Airforce Base, but there were 3000 evacuees housed here in two separate buildings. It was unknown as to whether there are trauma counselors working at this large shelter, but I decided to remain with the Baptist shelters as I had made a contact with a psychologist, Richard Brake, and he had identified that his agency was involved in the national disaster recovery business as the agency had also been involved in trauma recovery and opening foster homes in the Sri Lanka area after the tsunami.

After spending the first few days in the shelters at Levi Strauss (about 400 evacuees) and Lackland (about 150-200), it became apparent that there were a large contingent of volunteers in the shelter, but no one in particular was focusing on trauma recovery and the children had little to do during the day as they were not in school. This was a direct result of being at the Levi shelter only two days after Hurricane Rita hit, as the evacuees were still in the initial stages of disaster recovery, just coming off the buses from the lower Texas regions that were badly hit by Hurricane Rita. Parents were very traumatized and panicked, not wanting to let their children out of their sight. As a consequence, my colleague, Barb Desjardins, and I set up two art tables in a common room so that parents could feel safe allowing us to invite their children to a table to color and debrief. During the first day or two, children were happy to come up individually or on small groups, some of them belonging to the same families such as cousins, and brothers and sisters. Quickly, adults joined the table after about a day, only some of them related to the children, and others were entirely alone but wanted the companionship of a comfortable and inviting place to sit.

Ideally, it would have been great to have the opportunity to spend some time alone with some of the evacuees, but it was immediately clear that parents liked the publicly visual setup better, so we worked hard at finding opportunities to talk “alone” with the children while still at the main table. Given that there were two trauma counselors at the table, this allowed for one of us to spend time with the larger group while one of us sat with a child or adult or family in particular. For any volunteer trauma counselor, having to go into a shelter alone would be extremely taxing to conduct debriefings because there people were coming up in all directions to ask for help or just to talk.

Lackland, a more established shelter for the Katrina evacuees, had a very different feel. This shelter had been running since Labor Day weekend and the families were generally more settled in their areas or their “homes” in the shelter. They were also that far along in the process in terms of getting FEMA money to start looking for a more permanent place to stay. In this shelter, it was more difficult to capture the kids with art and words, as they were in school during the day, and had much energy to expend in the evening. It didn’t seem like their kind of fun to sit and draw or talk. Consequently, more time in this shelter was spent with the adults, and this also was very rewarding work. It should be noted there was a mood or type of opinion among the evacuees that somehow the really stricken people were Katrina evacuees and that Rita had been “less” of a trauma. There appears to be an old adage around these parts that you hide from the wind (categorized as more Rita) and run from the water (categorized as more Katrina). Yet, it was later determined that a number of towns such as Beaumont and Lake Charles did have extensive water damage. Eventually, Levi, the Rita shelter, pretty much closed when the 400 evacuees were moved to Waco on Thursday September 30th, 2005. Although they were to be bused to an old veteran’s hospital, the evacuees instead were taken to an abandoned Walmart, with insufficient toilets and running water.

The volunteers felt a sense of grief and shock after hearing stories of evacuees crying to return “home” to Levi Strauss where they had been so kindly treated. It appeared that many evacuees were almost more traumatized by the many moves from escaping the storm to moving around in safe places and shelters. Barb and I worked hard at controlling what we could manage, trying to offer some trauma debriefing to Rita evacuees at Levi, who had just newly arrived, and also to Katrina evacuees at the smaller Lackland Church shelter.

Between Barb and myself, we both came in armed with many supplies such as good quality blank art paper, coloring books, books to journal in, coloring pencils, markers, lead pencils and erasers. Barb also brought in a large supply of photocopied mandalas. I was not that convinced that the mandalas would be used all that much and as you can see by pictures of the art work I sent you [see pictures on left], children and adults of all ages loved them, found them soothing, and preferred them when they did not want to answer debriefing questions. The mandalas, the outline of a castle and the coloring books gave the evacuees a safe haven from which they could escape the chaos and turmoil of their experience and also the new shelter life to which they were just adapting. Although we had a large supply of colored pencils and lead pencils that were already sharpened, we also had many packets of supplies that were not pre-sharpened, so we had manual pencil sharpeners and one electric sharpener. It would have been far less frustrating if we had made sure that all pencils were pre-sharpened. It was interesting to note that most of the evacuees did not jump at even the fine-tipped markers except for when they were coloring mandalas perhaps, but preferred the control of the colored pencil and lead pencil. Messy activities were not popular and we avoided providing them.

As you read my journal of eight days of working in two shelters, please note that while the hurricanes were large on people’s minds, all the other traumas tended to surface too, and debriefing also covered some of these other traumas. It was completely fate that brought Barb and I to work together in the shelters during the same week (and fate that we both arrived just after Hurricane Rita hit), but I would have not chosen to have it any other way. Working with a partner who understands the debriefing work resulted in the ability to be more thorough and complete in our debriefing work, albeit in an unusual and chaotic setting. Barb and I were able to work with evacuees from both hurricanes, and as you will read, there are some profound differences between the two groups and what their immediate needs were.

Daily Journal

The following daily journal is presented in an unedited form to capture the immediate experiences of the author as she worked with evacuees during the hurricane’s aftermath.

Monday September 26th, 2005

I really enjoyed spending the day starting with the operations center for the Baptist Child and Family Centre. Richard Brake, agency psychologist, said there were actually a number of social workers on staff but they are restricted by their ability to work outside their contract, so that there had been many volunteers going into the nine shelters (serving food, helping with clean-up, doing laundry) but not a lot of time being spent with the kids listening to their stories. Richard gave us permission to go into any shelter we wanted that was his and pointed out three shelters in particular, the Levi Centre- a former Levi factory where a mix of Katrina and Rita evacuees were, the Lackland Church, where Katrina evacuees had been living for the last month (and there was now a push on to get them into more permanent shelter so the numbers were dwindling) and the First Baptist Church. Richard even kindly offered to give us a cell phone starting tomorrow, which was great too to be in contact with the main office. He also offered some Brave Bart books that were sent by Bill Steele.

The Levi Centre had actually even more children in the old factory since yesterday when Barb had been working there. At one point, there were two tables of children doing art and maybe twelve children actively involved at the peak with always at least four children directly engaged. Parents also joined and several young adults were drawing. One was a man who had a wife and baby and he came over and free-hand drew a beautiful face of a dog, then handed in the picture and left. Later, he asked to see the picture but did not want to take it. He gave us permission to copy it and seemed happy when I said we would bring it back for the wall.

A mother, Barbi, and her two boys, age six and seven years also participated. Barbi’s mother Lydia also listened at times. Barbi went to great length to talk about what happened. She lived in an apartment in Port Arthur, was unable to find transportation to leave so spent six hours in terror in her bed with her two boys and her mother. They thought they were going to die and did not dare move because they could hear metal twisting and crashing all around them. Part of their apartment complex roof came down and the carport was completely twisted metal. Windows crashed in and all four people thought they were going to die. She remembers a constant sound of a freight train coming through her house and how there was a first smell of salt, like salt from the gulf wafting in. Lydia recalled that she did not smell it, but said many others hear said it was like the smell of the ocean had come into their houses and apartments. The boys wavered between being interested in their mother and grandmother’s stories and wanting to run off and play. Barbi explained that it was only the intervention of Jesus that saved her and her family. She seemed still in shock because Hurricane Rita only had occurred on the Friday night into the Saturday morning and this was now Monday afternoon. Barbi said she was unable to join in the drawing because she was still very overwhelmed and she constantly felt as if her heart and her stomach were moving together in a gut-wrenching twist. She had lost everything and she did not know how she would start again. Lydia, Barbi’s mom was very supportive but she too was in shock herself.

Three cousins from Baytown participated and they had no idea what their homes looked like after the storm. They had not seen the hurricane directly, but they had guessed that their homes (apartments) were gone. When asked to draw the hurricane they did, but immediately put down their colored pencils and markers and picked up only a lead pencil to draw. Before this, they had been enjoying especially the mandalas and making their own pretty pictures with the stickers. Some of the other children drew the hurricane too and one drew a man drowning in the water and she made a point to say the man had definitely died.

We also met with David, a 39-year-old man from Beaumont and his wife Stephanie, age 26. She had three children, but her two girls were with another relative. They had Dakori, age three, with them and Stephanie was due in two weeks. David also had two children from a previous marriage. The family had been stranded in a bus caravan for five straight days. There were been nine buses with each one housing at least 30-35 people. David kept Dakori on his lap the whole time. Stephanie, although pregnant, was not allowed to go to the washroom when she needed; there seemed to be scheduled washroom breaks and armed guards kept control at times. Stephanie ended up with dehydration and in hospital. David then recalled his tour in Desert Storm and how his two best buddies were killed. He said that he should was supposed to be at the same spot that they were when they were killed, but he wasn’t and they died. David also said that every day felt like Monday now. Stephanie drew a beautiful picture of a tree and home and just said this was a peaceful drawing.

Barb and I then went to Lackland Church where Katrina families were. At this point, we had only met Hurricane Rita evacuees. There was a noticeable change in that there seemed to be few children and at the moment we arrived, a fight was about to break out between what appeared to be two 12-year-old boys. The mood seemed more somber and the children were not encouraged by the request to come and draw. We came at the end of dinner and most of the people just came and ate very quickly. The food was genuine Louisiana chicken gumbo and volunteers were unsure who made it. Only Simeon, age 8 years, came to draw. He spent a lot of time with Barb and myself and seemed to enjoy the attention. His words were very immature for eight, but he did seem to like coloring in the mandalas. Simeon had no interest in drawing what happened in the hurricane but did say that he had been knocked out and he woke up in a hospital. He also said that his friend’s father had died in the storm and he learned about that on television. Simeon mentioned in his worst dream that a monster was chasing him. When asked to draw the monster, he did and told a story about how the monster tried to kill him first, but he was only really a dummy, and that the real him was under the bed hiding and being safe. Simeon was encouraged to show his face in the drawing, so he did let the dummy’s eyes show and he let his whole face show under the bed. Simeon then added a costume and said that he snuck into his costume and hit them monster, slapping him and running. He also depicted his friend in the picture that helping him by distracting the monster. Simeon’s speech improved to his proper age at the point this story was finished.

The only other child who showed any interest in drawing was a boy, age five years, named Elijah, who ran over and started scribbling all over the page and ran away. There was design to the scribble but he refused to give a story to his picture.

The Katrina evacuees at Lackland have been there for a month and have settled in like it was home. They did not generally want to talk to strangers like adults, children, or us, and they did not stick around the main room for long. It was unclear where they went after dinner, as the common area was almost empty at one point. (I later learned that many families were going to hotels in the evening for overnight). Simeon enjoyed a lot of attention but it may be that other children are bullying him. Toward the end of the evening, a few children were referring to him as Cinnamon and this really upset him. The children who are in this shelter are in school all day and go to a pool in the evening. However, Simeon did not seem to know where any of the children were and seemed disinterested in going to the pool. His family had a room upstairs off an area where a lot of the clothing was being stored (there was a major abundance of clothes that the evacuees could not use). This seemed to be the only family that had a private room like this. Names of the family were posted on the wall, and there seemed to be many children but Simeon only talked about his twin sister and brother who were younger than he was.

The Rita evacuees at Levi were still very shocked by their tragedy and many were just in beginning survival mode. As Barbi said, they were glad to be alive and didn’t attribute their own courageousness at all as the reason they and their children lived. One of the children drew a very pretty picture and had agreed to draw a picture of the hurricane with the others, but when she was done her one picture, she bounced off with a few other children and never came back to the table. The adults came over and talked quite a bit. Barb Desjardins had been in this shelter the day before and she noticed that the families were quite a bit friendlier today, possibly attributed to the fact she was back again for the second day in a row. One boy mentioned to me that he was moving today. When I asked him about it, he said that he was moving his beds by a wall on the side of the large room, and that it was a preferred thing when you got to have a wall because that meant you had more privacy.

Tuesday September 26th, 2005

Started the day by doing a lot of running around photocopying with Barb Desjardins, picking up a few supplies, and then going over to the BCFS main offices. We met with Richard Brake, and as always, he was so helpful. Today, he asked about how things went yesterday and was a little surprised that some of the Rita evacuees at the shelter had been caught in the storm and had not left the area in time. Again, he said to please go to any of the shelters where we were the most useful and we said it was good to go back to the Levi factory as Barb had noticed that the kids and parents were now talking to us more, that a trust was developing. We were also going to go to Lackland church, where the Katrina evacuees were.

At the Levi shelter, there were many of the same children from yesterday. One family of five-- a mom and four kids-- were very happy to find out they would likely return to Baytown tomorrow. Carina, one of the four children, came right over to the table to draw. Barb had told me that it was her dad who had died on Father’s Day this year, after he had been drinking and then he hit an 18-wheeler truck and died. Then Carina told me today that her dad died after he hit an 18-wheeler and every bone in his body had been broken. He was in a car by himself. Carina said that every picture she had drawn of her dad since, she ripped up because she couldn’t bear her feelings. After normalizing her feelings, I asked if she wanted to draw him again and she said she would. When asked about the story to the picture, Carina said the last time she saw her dad was on Saturday night that weekend. She had been upset with her mom because she wanted to sleep next to her mom but her sister had that privileged spot. Carina fell asleep and the call came in the middle of the night. It was her sister who told her dad died, and she could hear her mom talking and crying on the phone. Carina was crying and shaking. She was begging her mom to say that her dad was ok, and she remembers her pleading. She also begged to see her dad, but she wasn’t allowed and she recalled how people told her his ankle was bleeding and described this in great detail. Carina wanted her daddy “burned” (cremated) but he was buried instead. She said if he were burned, he would still have her daddy then. Two days before this, she told Barb her greatest worry from the hurricane was that her daddy’s grave would be underwater. Carina then talked about how her uncle died after he was burned in a tank. Both her daddy and her uncle died early in the morning, just on different days. Carina said that she went to the funeral and her cousin told her that wasn’t her dad there. Carina didn’t understand what she meant. Carina put sand on her dad’s coffin as well as flowers and roses. Carina said now he is turning to dust and he is in heaven. We also talked about how he was still so vividly alive in her heart. She said that her dad took her everywhere- to the wave pool, to the mall, and to the merry-go-round and her dad would yell at her to “get on that horsy baby”. Carina said sadly that she never goes on horses now. Carina’s birthday was May 18th (she was 8)and she said that she had the best birthday with him ever and he gave her shirts, a crown and pineapples.

Carina has three other siblings: Chris age 13, Aaron- age 11, and Alexis, age 9. She also had two pets: Snowball, a dog, and Daisy, a dog. Her mom threw one out when he got sick and Daisy ran away. The advice she would give about what has happened to her is to tell someone else that it will be OK because my dad died too. As we talked about the picture, another little girl was angry that we huddled up together talking and Carina told her to calm down. She then said that one of the volunteers told her that whenever someone is upset with you, just smile because that is good advice. As she talked about her picture, she smiled a lot as she talked about hugging him and being happy standing in from of her house. She said she couldn’t take her picture because she was leaving for Baytown tomorrow and there was nowhere to put it, but she didn’t want to rip it up. She also didn’t want it on the wall, because she was leaving so she wanted me to have it. This has got to be my favorite possession from this trip. Before we left the shelter, the whole family wanted their picture together. It is amazing to see how important it is to take pictures…that these children exist and have lives and they want to start documenting their story again.

Adam, age seven, was a boy from Beaumont, which we have now learned was completely devastated. He was a very happy boy who lived in a trailer park. Adam talked about how he stayed throughout the hurricane and a big tree fell on his trailer and on the other trailers. The water started rising up to the trailer door and he saw how his neighbor almost drowned after being hit on the head. Adam was mesmerized by all the water and described how one van was floating in the water as he and his family fled to Port Arthur, which was also badly hit by the storm. Adam didn’t really want to answer any questions, he just wanted to talk and draw.

It is amazing how the stories are different for everyone, how one child focuses on her dad’s death because that is the biggest tragedy for her and the hurricane is the smaller part. Or how some children and adults rear back from any questions or jump at the questions. For me, as a debriefed, it is like doing a fine dance…never wanting to ask too much and be intrusive but wanting to help them debrief. This is not a normal debriefing situation either. Organization or lack of it ensures there is no quiet place to go and also the parents want to keep an eye on their children from a distance. Barb and I later compared notes today about how we go to our own respective hotel rooms at the end of the day and then completely reorder our own possessions, making sure everything is neat and tidy…. it really was quite a laugh because neither of us are that orderly at all…oh but the compulsion of it all!

For a break, I left to go walk around where the “homes” were in the main room, the homes consisting of large beds in the middle of the factory, with some lucky people actually have walls or dividers, but for the most part were in the complete open. The bedding was very clean and everyone is actually treated very well here. I noticed a young woman (she turned out to be 21) and her young child, just under two. Their names were Sarah and Mia. Sarah’s husband was sleeping on the bed beside her with a pillow over his head. This is how some of the other people in the large room slept too. Sarah told me that the family had come from Beaumont and she worked at the La Quinta hotel. She was very happy to have that job, and when she heard about Rita coming, her manager told her that she could stay at the hotel for safety. So, she stayed. When she arrived at the hotel with her husband and daughter, the manager had turned off all the lights and told her she would have to find another place of refuge and if she didn’t leave, the armed guards would be called. Sarah eventually found a place to stay with a distant relative, but as the storm started, she knew she was in danger with the cracking glass, the high winds and the damage to the roof. The waters started to rise and she was very worried now because she did not know how to swim. The sounds really bothered her and she said that she could literally feel the house shake as if the whole house was going to come apart around her. By the end of the storm, she, her husband and Mia were trying to escape, but the water had risen so much that they couldn’t get the truck started. Finally, when it did start, they got to one shelter but had to leave there to get help for Sarah’s daughter who has severe asthma and now needed medical help.

A nurse who needed to know about Sarah’s medications as well as Mia’s interrupted the story here. As the nurse took information, the nurse had a small baggie filled with the wristbands everyone had to wear to be able to stay in the shelter. I felt this was so sad, but knew it was for the absolute safety of the people. The nurse asked Sarah for her last name and then just wrote the first name Sarah down but without an h at the end. Sarah said proudly “my name is Sarah and it has an h”. There was something in the way she said it that made a huge difference to her…that she existed. I gave the nurse and Sarah a few minutes of privacy and coming back, Sarah talked about how the young family got in the car and drove until they had no gas and were now stranded on the highway. They called for help on the cell phone and sometimes armed guards would just go by and wave… and then speed off somewhere. Finally, in desperation, Sarah called the hospital number again and pleaded to just take her baby and it was ok to leave her and her husband stranded.

When help arrived, they did take everyone, including her brother who was in the car. Sarah later learned their vehicle was pretty much consumed by water. Sarah’s Mia did get the help she needed, and Sarah had a preferred spot in the shelter near a portable wall that had a plug so she could use Mia’s ‘breathing machine” as she called it, throughout the night without disturbing the other residents. Even though this scared Sarah greatly, the one worry that remained with her was to find her parents. She wasn’t sure they were alive and made it and had heard some people had actually died in Beaumont. She knew that these were not her parents but she worried they were her friends. Sarah’s greatest relief would be to find out her parents and her 20-year-old sister were ok. At this point, it was easy to see Sarah needed a break and she took Mia to the washroom. She asked me to take her cell number with me in case I found her parents at one of the other shelters I was at.

I went looking for Barbi, Lydia and Jacob and Jessie today. They were sitting looking very stressed in the dining area. Barbi immediately said that the boys had looked for us this morning and we weren’t there. When we explained we come in the early afternoon and work into the evening hours, she still seemed upset and we made sure that she knew our schedule for tomorrow. Barbi said that she had spent a very frustrating day at the FEMA offices.

Going over to the Katrina shelter (Lackland), we were unable to find Simeon to give his picture back and the few other children that were there were playing very energetically in the middle of the beds. It is interesting for me to remember that unexpected bursts of energy and aggression go hand in hand with trauma. We talked to an older lady, and she had a clear wristband on. We had been told that clear bands mean they are having serious mental health problems but in this shelter almost all wore the clear band, so this did not mean this there. Yet, this woman made very little sense. We said goodbye and wished her well and upon entering the washroom, suddenly came on a middle-aged woman who was putting cream over very nasty marks on her torso. She told us that these were marks she was trying to heal from the damaging waters of Katrina. She had stayed behind right where Katrina had entered land at St. Bernard Parish. Terry, her name, said she stayed because her grandparents refused to leave, her grandma being 90 and her grandpa being 87. The waters that evening started across the grass in the dark (she said during the day rushing water may not look so ominous, but at night it was very scary) and then came up to the doorstep…but then in 45 minutes, the water in the house rose 13 feet. Terry found herself with her parents upstairs and up on furniture.

Eventually, they were saved but not before Terry really wondered if she would have to chose between her grandparents as to which one to save. They had only one life jacket, her grandma couldn’t swim at all and her grandfather was very frail. Fortunately, help arrived in time and when they reached the hospital, they had to be taken by boat as the hospital was under water on the first floor. However, the water didn’t go as high as the second floor and that meant that her grandmother ended up being lifted in a sheet to make it to the second floor window of the hospital. Terry and her grandparents were now at Lackland for the last month and they had been given aid by FEMA where they could get 14 days of free hotel time… that meant with Terry and her two grandparents, they could get fourteen days times three people. Terry’s grandparents were staying at a motel for two days and then they would stay at the shelter on the third day, giving Terry a chance to take a good bath and a quiet stay on the bed. Terry was also a breast cancer survivor and she is currently getting chemotherapy treatments. She lost so much hair that she recently shaved her head. She felt like a survivor she said but her one piece of advice for others would be to leave when people say to leave. She doesn’t know what would have happened if the water had continued to rise and she marvels that the water stopped.

Barb got a call on the cell phone that we may be debriefing a team of counselors that had been helping the Katrina victims at the BFCS offices on Thursday. This is quite an honor. We will have to put our heads together tomorrow.

It broke my heart when we left the Katrina shelter tonight. A teenage boy had found a very young pup abandoned in the back of a truck. Of course, no pets are allowed in the shelter so he wasn’t sure what to do with the pup, but he knew he couldn’t keep it. He was going to try to convince a local volunteer to take it home. He very proudly wanted his picture taken with the pup.

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