KATRINA 5 YEARS LATER: Bakersfield's Generosity Still Felt by Victims

Little was left of a Biloxi, Miss., beach front after Hurricane Katrina

August marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the killer storm that buried New Orleans in the water that broke loose from the city’s levees and whose horrific winds ground away entire communities on the Gulf Coast.

The catastrophe touched residents in Bakersfield, Calif., who opened their wallets and hearts to help people in devastated Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Many contributed money and time through organized groups. Others went to the region, rolling up their sleeves and lending a hand.

Following on this blog are four stories of Bakersfield people and groups who responded in very personal ways. In no way do they represent a comprehensive picture of all the contributions Bakersfield people made. But they do demonstrate the generous and caring nature of our community.

Last spring I traveled to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to report on how our efforts turned out.

I found tough, resilient people still coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Profusely grateful for the help and still amazed by Bakersfield’s generosity, they conceded they had not yet fully recovered, but they were making progress. They could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Just a few days after I returned to Bakersfield, British Petroleum’s oil drilling platform Deepwater Horizon exploded, gushing out millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

As Ray Cox, the Wal-Mart manager in Waveland, Miss., told me: “The light at the end of the tunnel has gone from a bright flashlight to a penlight. But, we’ll be OK. It’s more aggravating than anything. It slows you down.”

Hurricane Katrina blew away Cox’s Wal-Mart five years ago. Like his customers, Cox also was left homeless by Katrina.

But they were persevering. The rubble had been cleared away. Cox’s Wal-Mart was rebuilt. Businesses were returning. Tourism, which depends primarily on fishing, had rekindled.

That was before the BP explosion, before the tar balls and oil-drenched animals started washing ashore, and before fishing prohibitions chased away the tourists.

Ellie Vasilopoulos in Biloxi, Miss., told me that she is so sickened by this latest disaster she and her neighbors have stopped watching television news reports. They are just too darn depressing.

And she noted there are similarities in the BP and Katrina disasters: The responses to both lacked coordination. “No one knows who’s in charge.”

“It’s a mess,” she said recently. “We are counting the days when they cap the well and clean up the oil.”

A version of this July 10, 2010 article written by Dianne Hardisty was one in a series that was printed in The Bakersfield Californian about the results of Bakersfield volunteer projects to help rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Dianne Hardisty and her husband, John Hardisty, traveled to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in April 2010 to report on progress.

KATRINA 5 YEARS LATER: NPR Show Compelled Bakersfield Retiree to Help New Orleans Family

Carolyn and Michael Mattios in front of their New Orleans home.

Michael and Carolyn Mattios and their teenage sons fought their way through streets clogged with cars and fear to escape the floodwaters filling New Orleans. They made their way to Baton Rouge, leaving behind their modest Deers Street home on the border of the Ninth Ward.

A room in a crime-infested motel became the family's "temporary" home. But the stay they hoped would be for only a few days stretched into months, as New Orleans' recovery efforts were overwhelmed by the devastation.

A dishwasher, whose job was washed away by Hurricane Katrina, Michael would sneak back into the barricaded city, camping out in the wreckage of his house to keep looters away.

Carolyn remained at the motel, struggling to keep her family together and her sons in school. The family's predicament grew desperate until one day she was interviewed by a reporter from "All Things Considered," a National Public Radio show.

Asked how she was doing, Carolyn didn't hold back. Insurance money was slow in coming and meager when it arrived. The contractors they hired to fix their house did shoddy work. She doubted they would ever be able to go home.

Thousands of miles away in Bakersfield, Jack Hendrix, a retired East Bakersfield High School counselor and part-time home repairman, listened to Carolyn's sad story. He decided to help.

Hendrix tracked down the Mattios family through the NPR reporter. He recruited Chris Thomas, a young friend with construction skills, and headed to New Orleans. They camped out in a budget hotel, working for six weeks to repair the Mattios' house. And when they were done, Hendrix rented a truck, drove to Baton Rouge and moved the family back into their home.

"We were so surprised," said Carolyn during a recent interview in New Orleans. "After the show, people started sending money. It wasn't a lot of money -- $20 here and there. But it really helped."

"We got more help from people -- perfect strangers -- than we got from the government. We were touched by God. They didn't know us from the man on the moon, but they opened up their hearts and sent us their hard-earned money. They were the heroes," said Michael.

"But Jack was the only one that showed up to help. He pretty much finished fixing up our house," said Michael, 74, who now is retired. Carolyn just turned 62 and is receiving disability retirement. Their two sons are now attending college. The family keeps in touch with Jack, whom they call their friend.

"They are such sweet people," Hendrix said.

Pulling away from the Mattios' home, I waved to workers from Samaritan Purse Disaster Relief who were repairing a house. But mostly the neighborhood was quiet. The families that once made Deers Street a lively community were gone, likely not to come back. There were no children playing in the streets or behind the fences that lined yards.

On the top step of a porch of a nearby house sat Joan Lewis. Before Katrina, she worked for the telephone company. She's retired now. She returned to the wreckage of her home and fixed it up. It's freshly painted. The lawn that stretches to the street is manicured. But the buildings on both sides are abandoned, boarded up and marked with the all-too-common spray painted warnings of the Katrina rescue crews.

"Does that bother you?" I asked her, getting out of my car to chat.

"Yes, it's forever reminding me," she said. "It reminds me of the power of God. But he didn't do this to be hateful. It also reminds me of the goodness of people; all those people who came to help.

"Now it's time to move forward."

This July 10, 2010 article written by Dianne Hardisty is one in a series that was printed in The Bakersfield Californian about the results of Bakersfield volunteer projects to help rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Dianne Hardisty and her husband, John Hardisty, traveled to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in April 2010 to report on progress.

KATRINA 5 YEARS LATER: Bakersfield woman's family rebuilding lives

Dawn Lusich stands with Ray Cox

Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on the Gulf Coast when Sandra Boswell in Bakersfield received a telephone call from her family in Mississippi.

“It’s a 5,” she heard.

At first she thought they were talking about the time of day. Then it hit her. They were talking about the strength of the storm. Katrina was a category 5 hurricane.

“Oh, my God. You all have to leave,” she pleaded.

Boswell knew the power of a category 5 hurricane. She rode out category 5 Hurricane Camille in 1969 and vowed “never again. It was terrifying.”

Boswell, a registered nurse who oversees the intensive care units at Catholic Healthcare West’s Bakersfield hospitals, has many brothers and sisters still living along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Her husband, Bill, also has family around Bay St. Louis.

The couple moved to Bakersfield in the 1980s so Bill could work in the oil industry. Bakersfield “grew on them” and they never moved “back home” to Mississippi.

When Katrina landed, Boswell’s brother and two of her sisters “lost everything.” Her sister Dawn Lusich, whose family had a catfish farm and oyster beds, stubbornly stayed to protect their business.

But as the churning ocean filled Lusich’s neighborhood with water, she and her two young children fled with neighbors into her home’s attic. Rain-filled winds ripped the roof from the house. Flood waters caused it to drift from its foundation.

When Katrina moved on and calm returned to the devastated city, Lusich, her children and neighbors were rescued from the attic rooftop.

“She thought she was going to die,” Sandra said.

Nearly 2,000 miles away, Sandra and Bill Boswell began collecting clothing and supplies for their families and friends in Mississippi. With the help of a Bakersfield television station, a collection point was set up. When the first tractor-trailer rig was filled, it headed east. Just a few days later, a second 18-wheeler was stuffed with supplies and sent to the Gulf.

“Sandra called and said Billie was on his way,” recalled Lusich. “When he arrived, I could not believe the outpouring of help from Bakersfield.”

A few weeks later, Sandra traveled to Mississippi. “We had no Gulf. It was all gone. It was horrible. All I did was cry,” she said.

The Wal-Mart in nearby Waveland, where Lusich worked in the customer service department, also was gone. Manager Ray Cox told his bosses at corporate headquarters in Arkansas that the place “looked like Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped.”

Company trucks began arriving with water, non-perishable food and supplies. For the next 30 days, Wal-Mart gave away — free of charge — life-sustaining medications. Tents housed a temporary Wal-Mart.

Meanwhile, Cox, who also lost his home, dispatched staff to check on employees. Using payroll records, they fanned out to account for everyone. Sadly, Edgar Bane, a worker on the loading dock, and his family of four had died in the storm.

Every employee received a $1,000 check to get them through the early days of the crisis. And when they were able to return to work, jobs were waiting for them. Eleven months after the storm, Waveland’s new Wal-Mart opened for business.

“Like everyone else around here, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps,” Cox said. “It’s made us stronger.”

Lusich credits Cox and Wal-Mart for getting her through the hard times.

She and most of her neighbors have rebuilt their homes. Lusich’s house is not as grand as her old one.

“Katrina took a lot from me, but it also gave me a lot,” Lusich said, explaining she is closer to her family and friends today.

I called Cox a few days ago to see how his community was fairing after the BP platform explosion. Many of his customers and neighbors are fishermen. They now work for BP. Instead of pulling shrimp and fish from the nearby waters, they are laying boom and sucking out oil.

“We’re persevering and just waiting to see what happens,” he said.


This July 10, 2010 article written by Dianne Hardisty is one in a series that was printed in The Bakersfield Californian about the results of Bakersfield volunteer projects to help rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Dianne Hardisty and her husband, John Hardisty, traveled to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in April 2010 to report on progress.

KATRINA 5 YEARS LATER: Bakersfield woman helps rebuild Lakeshore

Pamala McCarver recalls that she was crying so hard she could barely see through her car's windshield as she drove along the back roads around Bay St. Louis, Miss.

It was six weeks after Hurricane Katrina ripped thousands of homes from their foundations and tossed many into the ocean. A registered nurse at San Joaquin Hospital in Bakersfield, McCarver traveled to the Gulf Coast to visit her Kern County fire captain husband, Randy, who was helping with recovery efforts.

"It was like the entire San Fernando Valley had been wiped out," McCarver recalled recently. "There were spots of hope, but mostly devastation."

McCarver turned down Lakeshore Road and stopped. The steeple of a church rested on the ground, pointing toward the heavens. Next to it was a tarp-like tent where food and clothing was being distributed.

She approached a young couple, telling them how sorry she was that the church was destroyed.

Pastor Don A. Elbourne Jr. and his wife, Courtney, assured her the Lakeshore Baptist Church had not been destroyed. Hurricane Katrina only destroyed its building.

That exchange kindled a friendship between McCarver and the Elbournes that continues today. Over the past five years, McCarver and her friends in Bakersfield have sent supplies and gifts to the Elbournes and their church members. Holidays are remembered. Telephone calls are exchanged. They have become family.

A new church has been built. Behind it is a distribution center where needy area residents still come for help. A food pantry and dormitories have been added. Under construction is another building, where counseling and job training will be offered.

With the help of people like Pamala McCarver, the little country church that dates back to 1911 has become Rebuild Lakeshore (www.rebuildlakeshore.com). It's a place where church groups from throughout the nation come to rebuild homes and help heal lives.

People spend a week or two, or maybe more, sleeping in dormitories at night, cooking their meals in the mess hall and toiling in the heat of the Mississippi sun as house-by-house, street-by-street, this coastal town is put back together.

"We were 'ground zero' when Katrina hit," the pastor explained when I recently visited. Only a mile from the coast, the community was left 30 feet under water. "Every home in the area was gone; more than 4,000 lost."

A poor area, where most family incomes come from the fishing or offshore oil industries, the people of Lakeshore had little to lose, and they lost even that.

The church's stubborn steeple and the tent relief city that sprouted up around initially "became a beacon of hope," Elbourne recalled. But as the weeks and months of recovery dragged on, it also became "a symbol of devastation." The church buildings, themselves, had to be rebuilt.

"We had to make ourselves a hopeful scene if we were going to be in this for the long-term," he said. "What the storm did will affect this community for generations. We are dealing with the community's psychological, as well as physical recovery."

"Some people have lived here for seven generations. Their lives and their incomes are tied to the coast," he said. "They aren't leaving."

And that makes the recent BP oil disaster and the spoiling of the fishing industry such a painful blow to this already fragile community.

When I called a few days ago, church secretary Joell Fricke reported that commercial fishing is at a standstill. The community's shrimpers are idle. The lucky ones have been hired by BP to clean up the oil.

This July 10, 2010 article written by Dianne Hardisty is one of a series that was printed in The Bakersfield Californian about the results of Bakersfield volunteer projects to help rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Dianne Hardisty and her husband, John Hardisty, traveled to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in April 2010 to report on progress.