A little bit of heaven in a hurricane

I got home October 11^th from a second trip to help Raven Ministries at a large relief site in New Orleans. It was in a suburb called Metairie, which was just out of the �bowl� of downtown New Orleans. I say �bowl� because on one side you have a lake the size of a huge bay called Lake Ponchartrain (which is now mud and oil), the huge mouth of the Mississippi River on the other side, the Gulf of Mexico on the bottom, and endless canals and sloughs (built with the futile idea of somehow keeping the Mississippi from changing course) draining water from one side to the other criss-crossing the cities. The only things that were keeping the city from being flooded were precarious levees that proved too short and too weak since they are only made out of dirt and gravel. Since the entire area of lower Louisiana that isn�t city is all marsh and swamp, engineers were explaining that the entire area is slowly sinking and the levees were only going to be �repaired�. With the great barrier islands now washed away there would be nothing to weaken any further incoming hurricanes. This was �ground zero� for Hurricane Katrina and a large portion of Hurricane Rita. Both storms made landfall as Category 4 hurricanes, which meant tidal surges of 20 plus feet and winds in excess of 140 miles per hour. Rainfall was, often, several inches per hour.

      My first trip, in September, had been to the same site. I had flown into what was left of New Orleans airport on one of only two planes in or out all day. There had been only one functioning gate out of hundreds.  We had been able to provide hot meals, water, ice, clothing, supplies, hot meals, basic first aid, hugs, and prayers for hundreds and hundreds of people that seemed to just keep coming. We would take convoys of vans and trailers of the same supplies to many neighborhoods that had been partially or completely destroyed. Those that had stayed through the storm or were just beginning to trickle back had to strip everything they owned in their homes out and dump it on piles that covered their front yards and driveways as high as the eaves on their houses. All their carpets, furniture, beds, clothing, keepsakes, mattresses, curtains, etc were all full of mold, mud, and often sewage. If they hadn�t already done it, they would have to tear down all the interior walls, baseboards and wood trim since it was full of mold as was the insulation inside the walls. The heat and humidity down there, (90 degrees and 80-90% humidity), cause the mold to grow so fast that it was often clear up into the second stories within a few days. There was usually no power or water. People were beginning to find out how many loved ones and friends that perished. 

     My first trip had to be ended, abruptly, when we had to evacuate when Hurricane Rita took a sudden turn to the northwest and was bearing down on Louisiana and Texas. Many of us cried since we hated to have to leave the people that were stuck there and need our help so badly but we had no choice as New Orleans airport only had one plane leaving all day and Baton Rouge Airport was going to also be shut down. Many of the team I was on wound up having to drive a rental vehicle back across the country to California. The Red Cross was swamped trying to set up relief shelters and ready outside medical facilities to accommodate a horrendous amount of hospital patients and injured that would have to be evacuated from the impact areas since the hospitals in New Orleans got flooded and lost power in 100 degree heat which resulted in hundreds of patients dying. Other relief agencies that everyone assumes would always be �right there, right away� were nowhere to be found. They would not appear for a few weeks. Folks I met that had wanted to go down and volunteer had not even been able to get an address to go to or a contact phone number in the area. 85-90% percent of the relief I saw being provided was by large church based relief centers like the one I was at with supplies being brought in by family vehicles, vans, rented trucks, etc. The donations and funds were being provided by families, schools, and churches all over the country. The outpouring of the American people was a wonderful thing to see. It was an amazing thing to be a tiny part of and it was incredibly hard to have to leave it.

      God provided me, though, with a second opportunity to return and I can�t describe the excitement and anticipation of being able to jump back into the battle with my dear friends. You felt like someone trying to chip away at a giant iceberg with a table knife but you could not wait to get �back to chipping away�. The relief operation was being moved to an even larger site. We were able to repair the church and large school (kindergarten through grade 12) to the point where it passed rigid inspections and was able to reopen on the fourth day I was there. God had provided electricians, drywall specialists, carpenters, and willing laborers and before we knew it, we got to stand and watch the crowds of smiling students from ages  4 to 18 pouring coming back to school! What a blessing that was! At the new site which was on a very large main thoroughfare that was very easy for anyone to find,  5 huge circus style white tents were erected with the volume of the same relief supplies now coming in huge trucks and where before there were 45-50 volunteers made up of little teams of 5, 10, or, occasionally 20 traveling in or out of the site, there was, now, going to be a hundred or more! The operation was now based in a huge parking lot in front of a church called Celebration Church that could seat 12,000 at a time and was being remodeled after taking 6 feet of water that stood for 3 weeks. 

         On the plane to New Orleans I sat next to a search and rescue specialist from Yellowstone National Park that was a logistics expert on a national emergency team. He had been to disasters for years. He coordinated the rescues at New York on September 11^th. That was considered one �special incident�. He was at the space shuttle explosion. That, too, was considered one �special incident�. The disaster from hurricanes Katrina and Rita was considered to be so huge it had been classified as 26 special incidents!

      This time, the scope and level of activity was even more intense with 10�s of thousands of displaced people making their way  back to the area. I met so many people that were just wandering around that had nowhere left to go. The pain and despair you saw in their eyes and heard in their words still keeps me awake at night. After returning home from the trip in September, although exhausted, I slept okay at night and was glad to be home. This time is different. I have been home 3 days now and still lay awake for long periods seeing faces, mountains of debris, shattered homes, and remembering the stench. After all I have seen working in hospitals 35 years and having complete trust in God, I thought it would have been easier to cope with. 

      I thought that after the first trip, I would be more �used� to holding people as they cried and would say things like, �I can�t find my Daddy, I can�t find my Daddy� or finding out their son had become too overwhelmed and had committed suicide or that their husband had died, or had had loved ones die in disabled hospitals, or hearing time after time after time, �It�s all gone, everything is all gone� or �We have nothing left� but I learned very quickly you never get �used� to it. It rips your heart apart even worse every time you hear it

     I thought I had grown used to seeing huge trees yanked out of the ground like weeds and thrown through the front of a house like a giant spear or large stores destroyed by looting gangs, but you don�t. Even though there was signs of returning life at the airport (the jetways were no longer blowing in the wind like shredded laundry) and in the city with power coming on line in many areas and water running (you were not to drink it or get it into your mouth but you could wash off), the amount of damage was proving far greater than earlier anticipated. According to engineers I spoke to the amount of debris already accumulated exceeded that normally produced in a 15 year period and homes had not been cleared out yet and the endless areas that were going to be leveled hadn�t yet! People were waiting hours in lines and then being allowed back into areas to gather what things, if any, were salvageable, and leave since the homes were all condemned. In other areas, folks were climbing over mountains of debris and trying to make the heart wrenching choice of whether or not they felt able, physically or emotionally, to even try to put it all back together. Most had already made plans elsewhere and weren�t coming back at all. Many just had nowhere else to go. The two biggest public hospitals had both been condemned. Hot power lines were down everywhere and often lying across the roofs of houses. I walked through a neighborhood across from where were sleeping (the floor of a high school gym) and hot power lines were draped over houses, drooping down to less than 8 feet off the street and lying across homes on the other side! There were red plastic strips that read �Caution-electric cables� draped from them and cars driving right under them. Transformers on power poles were still exploding. There were houses being destroyed by fires everyday. Sirens from fire engines and ambulances were so constant that after a while you barely notice them. Large trucks were driving down the streets twice a day with machines in the back that pumped huge clouds of insecticide into the air. In an instant, you would be engulfed in a fog of toxic chemicals. There was also aerial spraying going on since the incredible mosquito infestation that they have normally was much worse with all the standing water and now the mosquitoes were also drawing blood from dead animals so the potential for disease was severe. Maggots had infested freezers and refrigerators that had spoiled and rotted food from no power.

      I saw large beautiful brick homes and business blown apart. Stores that had been looted and torn up were everywhere. I saw stocked stores wide open with no windows left from the storm and abandoned. We went into neighborhoods in the basin (except for St. Charles and the Ninth Ward) that were now drained. Our task was to bring love and supplies to the folks that were wearing masks, boots, and rubber gloves just to climb over mountains of mud and debris and into what was left of all their homes; their dreams, their hopes, their memories gone. It tore your heart apart to stand by them and hug them as they looked at every material thing they had possessed in the world completely destroyed and tossed about in a muddy, molded, stinking mess with clouds of flies. Invaluable memories and pictures of their weddings, their babies being born, their little children as they grew up, etc., strewn about in the water and muck everywhere. The stench would often be so overpowering even with masks on that you would have to focus to keep from wretching. What we would have never expected, though, was the incredible grace and smiles on some of these people that were indescribable. We met one person after another, usually in the poorer sections of the city that God used to teach us invaluable lessons on gratitude for life, having our priorities straight, and having a grateful heart that we would have never been able to learn in any university in the world. These folks had touched something awesome and really deep that had just, simply, become who they were. The Spirit of God in some of these folks changed us forever. One woman told us that even though the little bit she had ever possessed had now been taken away, she had complete trust in the fact that God was going to give her back, over time, more than she had ever had in the first place and that it wasn�t going to be material things but things exceedingly more valuable. As you stood there with your arm around her, she was comforting you with a sweet smile and saying how someday she was going to be �the wealthiest woman in all of New Orleans� and it wasn�t going to be with material things! How do you describe such faith? Another woman whose little home had only been a foot or two above the water was just as amazing. She had to look at the homes of dear neighbors and friends all around her that had not been so fortunate. Those homes had large numbers spray painted on the doors by search and rescue squads in boats that had come earlier that designated the number of dead inside that were later removed. Some were zeros but many were �1� or �2�. Numbers denoting drowned animals were common.  She had family staying the night of the storm at her house but her husband who was in a wheelchair and had been at a friends home when the storm came in had become stranded on an elevated freeway overpass along with hundreds of others that had now become an island. It was the scene you saw on the news where thousands were sleeping on the overpasses and helicopters were dropping food and water. Once the first hurricane had subsided, she looked out her window to see a large outboard motorboat floating in her front yard! It was unoccupied and had drifted up off a trailer or come torn loose from a dock and made it nearly 3 miles inland and through countless streets, around corners, and wound up at her porch. She and her sons used it to get to the elevated freeway and retrieve her husband, his wheelchair, and provisions that were being dropped from helicopters and travel, safely, back to her little home. Using the license numbers on the boat was later able to contact the owner who could not believe his boat had made it that far and how God had used it to bless that family! A person had told one of us that they were �glad that their home and things had been taken away because now they were really free to help and minister to other folks that needed so much more than they did�! I met an elderly couple who had just laid it all down for the moment and were leaving town to celebrate their 40^th wedding anniversary. This little man had scrimped and saved to take his bride of 40 years on a special trip. He had saved enough to take her on a cruise ship for 10 days out of San Francisco. Not even a hurricane that had partially destroyed his home was going to rob his dear lady of her gift. He had it truly clear what was �stuff� and what was �gold�.  She was more precious to him than anything material in the world. He told me that he had lived through so many hurricanes that he looked at me, smiling, and said, �Shoot son, I remember a bunch of them before they even started giving them names!� I asked, �Didn�t you ever think of moving away?� He looked at me with a smile and said, �This is my home and these are my friends.� You were there to comfort them and they would be comforting and teaching you about priorities and real values! I can�t describe how many times you would approach someone with a meal or a bottle of water in your hand and you would wind up in a tearful embrace. Sometimes it was a toss-up who would cry first. They would stroke your back and reassure you that everything would turn out just fine and reminding you to just trust God even when nothing seems to make sense for the moment. Besides the incredible amount of food and supplies being passed out at the site We were able to take hundreds of hot meals out to neighborhoods, countless cases of water and food, diapers and baby food for their precious little ones, and love on them the way Jesus told us to do. In a small way, I guess we were able to �touch the Cross� and came away far more blessed than any meager way we were able to bless any of those victims. No one left that place the same. We saw how, vividly, all the material things we have could vanish in a moment. To those of us who had never lived through a mass disaster and lost it all, this was an invaluable insight. It is all about each and every life. God burned in our minds how precious every person is to Him. The real heart of what Jesus tried so hard and gave His life to help us understand was that what is truly important is to feed each other, clothe each other, help each other, hold each other, laugh with each other, cry with each other, love each other, and pray blessings over each other. All the rest if just so much "fluff" unless you have this straight in your heart. It wasn�t about just handing those poor folks some �stuff�, patting them on the back with some trite cliche' like �you just hang in there� or �you�ll get through this�, or �everything works out for the best�. You could give them new life and real HOPE. In my wildest dreams, I would have never ever imagined people blessed like this in such a horrible nightmarish situation. I guess you might call it �a little heaven in a hurricane�.