PEP, March 2006: Local 376 volunteers make a difference for Katrina victims

By JANE LaTOUR

As the destruction of Hurricane Katrina descended on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, two upstate Watershed Maintainers and their spouses felt compelled to act.

“Rather than watching helplessly as events unfolded on television, it was so much better to turn negative energy into positive action,” said Peg DiBenedetto. Five days after the disaster began on Aug. 29, the Local 376 member and mother of three, and her husband Michael, were helping out in Baton Rouge and Slidell, La. Since then, she has made two more trips.

Maintainer Richard Cable’s granddaughter Katherine in Poplarville, Miss., had no power or fresh water for over three weeks and no phone service for much longer. “We realized just how devastated the area was,” he said. “I wanted to help.” An item in the local paper led him to volunteer to drive Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers to Meridian and D’Iberville, Miss., in September and October.

Their firsthand witness provides a searing picture of life after Katrina. Their stories also reveal the kindness of strangers who pitched in todonate time and resources to help others.

Normally, Peg DiBenedetto spends her days helping to manage the Schoharie reservoir and protect the surrounding watershed lands. She hikes, hammers signs, and meets up with hunters, anglers and other hikers. She also has a history of volunteer service to others.

CitiHope, a Christian humanitarian relief agency, flew the couple south as part of a Disaster Response Team.

Unassuming heroes
From their base in Baton Rouge, the team spent the next five days delivering supplies. They brought medical supplies to the Earl K. Long Medical Center. “When time allowed, we loaded extra goods, baby formula, protein bars and Ensure into our rented SUV and just drove into the destruction and chaos until we found a church, a shelter, a police station or a clinic that had run out of supplies. Along the way, we met and helped families in desperate need,” explained Ms. DiBenedetto.

They put the medical director at the GulfportMemorial Hospital in touch with CitiHope. Within days, 7,000 vials of anti-tetanus vaccine arrived. “The blessed and scary part of this story is that if CitiHope had not been there to ask the question, ‘What do you need?’ I don’t think anyone else would have been there,” she said.

DiBenedetto spent her next three-day tour in mid-September in Baton Rouge, receiving medical supplies for a hospital. Then in December, Michael and Peg drove a truckload of 1,000 CitiHope Christmas “Boxes of Love” for distribution to Gulf Coast families. For three days, they delivered Christmas cheer to people in Birmingham and Mobile, Ala., Bayou Le Batre and Slidell, La., and Gautier, Miss. “It was shocking to see how little had changed from Day 10 after the storm,” said Ms. DiBenedetto. “We saw destruction that was unimaginable.”

“In September, people were dealing with a tragedy. In December, they were facing the reality that their lives were forever changed, for the worse,” said DiBenedetto. “I have a CD of photos of the devastation in India after the tsunami, and much of the devastation on the ground, in people’s faces, and in their lives seems to be very much the same.”

With just a few days notice before Cable’s first trip, his wife Jane collected supplies from friends, family and co-workers. “We gathered up toothbrushes, combs,toilet paper, towels and sheets to outfit the trailer,” he said. In October, “Jane found a place in D’Iberville calledUrban Life Ministries that was still feeding 1,200 to 1,500 people every day and providing shelter for the locals and the folks who came to help,” he said.

“As a volunteer firefighter, I have been involved with flood relief locally, but I have never seen anything like this before,” said Cable. “Those folks have lost everything — things we take for granted — the roof over their heads, pictures, keepsakes. If an opportunity arises where I can go back and help in any way, I will,” he said.

An unending crisis
Both volunteers pointed out that, seven months after the disaster, people are still living in crisis. “They will need any kind of assistance and volunteer help that people are able to give for quite some time,” said Cable. “They need not to be forgotten. They need not to keep paying for cars that are gone and houses they can’t live in. They need more crews with tools to rebuild their roofs,” said DiBenedetto.

They also need a responsive federal government. “We heard on the radio that a new phrase had been coined — being FEMA’d. Like if someone lets you down, they’d FEMA’d you,” said Ms. DiBenedetto. She said President Bush seems to be of the “ignore it and it’ll go away mentality.” She was in Baton Rouge when he stood in the Rose Garden and said, ‘We’re doing the best we can. The people of New Orleans just have to be patient,’ while people were dying. He didn’t get it then and he doesn’t get it now.”