PICKING UP PIECES AMONG THE RUINS
By Allison Sundaram
The task at hand: Throw away destroyed tables, chairs, yearbooks -- and even a wedding dress.
Rather than enjoy an extra week of sleep this past winter break, 14 students and one staff member spent those days in New Orleans by helping residents throw out years' worth of belongings damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Students spent seven days in the city, arriving late on New Year's day and departing on Sunday. They worked with Catholic Charities, gutting houses that had been damaged by the floods and untouched until their arrival. In addition to cabinets, floors and walls, students removed items that could not be salvaged, everything from family photographs to a wedding dress treasured by the community.
Michael Colyer of the Ignatian Center, along with three students, had planned the trip since October.
"I just wanted to sort of do something to connect myself with what was going on, instead of just being a passive onlooker to the whole tragedy," freshman Carolyn Mooser said. "I thought this was a good way to alleviate what was going on."
The group worked on three different houses, spending one or two days on each. Most of the homes had been in standing water for almost two months before they were drained, leaving a mixture of mold and debris that contaminated personal possessions.
"It was really bad," Mooser said. "When we would walk into the houses they would be very dark and with all this mold, it was almost scary stepping into it."
In addition to their work with Catholic Charities, students also had a chance to meet up with a Loyola University New Orleans, student who attended Santa Clara fall quarter.
Dawnyel Verret saw first-hand the devastation of Katrina. "My family just moved out from New Orleans, so we had to go back and just try to get everything from the apartment. We went back and saw the troops, and not being able to touch anything."
The group worked from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, removing house contents damaged by levee water, including, in one case, the ceiling. In two of the houses, the homeowners stayed to oversee the recovery.
"It was really great to put a face to the home and put a face to everything we were working with," said senior Anna Thorburn, a trip organizer.
In the afternoon, the students visited different areas of New Orleans. The Ninth Ward, traditionally a poorer part of the town, left a lasting impression on several students. "It looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off or something," Mooser said.
"It hit you when you were working in the home, but then to work so hard in one home and go to a place where as far as the eye can see all the homes are destroyed," Thorburn said. "You go from being very hopeful to a little hopeless."
Students also visited the upper middle class Lakeview neighborhood, which had also been destroyed. According to Colyer, the empty neighborhood made up 60 percent of the city's tax base, making recovery efforts doubly important.
"You look at them and you just know that they have a long hard road ahead of them, and it's not one home, its whole neighborhoods," Thorburn said.
In addition to the destruction of homes, regular life is still disrupted within the city. Stores are beginning to reopen, but, there is a lack of labor and no regular hours.
"It's just little things you take for granted, like Walmart or McDonalds," Verrett said.
For more information on participating in future immersion trips contact Michael Colyer at mcolyer@scu.edu.
Contact Allison Sundaram at (408) 554-4546 or asundaram@scu.edu.