Escorted by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the second of
three buses leaves Lavinia, carrying Katrina survivors to
Franklin.
Tears flowed freely among evacuees and workers at the
Lavinia shelter Sunday as survivors of Hurricane Katrina
boarded buses en route to a mayor-owned warehouse in
Franklin where three shelters are being consolidated.
Evacuees in the Tullahoma and Smyrna shelters were also to
be bused to the facility after which all three former
shelters will be closed.
County Mayor Kenny McBride rode out the emotional storm with
the evacuees, arriving early and staying at the shelter
until the dust settled on a day fraught with dismay,
including his own.
"These people have been pulled around from pillar to post
and jerked around so much," he said in frustration. "The
only announcement as to cause was air conditioning. No one
in Lavinia had ever requested air conditioning and most said
they didn't have air conditioning where they lived; if air
conditioning had been indicated it would have been installed
in the barracks."
Milan alderwoman Tammy Wade, who had been visiting the
survivors since their arrival, said, "These people are very
upset... they weren't worried about air conditioning because
they had survived Katrina."
Milan Alderwoman Tammy Wade stands outside the Lavinia
facility, at which no media were to have been allowed Sunday
by order of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.
McBride said he later learned the decision to consolidate,
made by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA),
was based in part on logistics, as the evacuees would be
closer to a major airport.
Part of the consternation was due to the abrupt notice,
given only Saturday afternoon, that the survivors were being
relocated, with little time to adjust to the idea.
"They had shown us the red carpet," said Anthony Royal, one
of 12 survivors who chose to relocate to the McKenzie
shelter at the former Long Heights Baptist Church (where a
family of five was already in place) rather than make the
long journey. "The people were nice, they made us feel easy
and at home. We'd already been through a lot--we'd been
depressed--but they made it feel like it was all better;
then they depressed us again."
Had the shelter remained intact, McBride said, "There's not
a doubt in my mind that this time next week there wouldn't
have been many left, because the staff has been doing an
outstanding job finding their families."
Of the 204 original survivors, he said in excess of 50 had
been relocated and, with bus tickets and air fares purchased
with local donations, had left to be near family members.
Only around 100 made the trip to Franklin.
McBride said representatives of the McKenzie shelter and
Huntingdon's First Baptist Church, which is also housing
survivors, would return to Lavinia Tuesday to glean supplies
from those donated by Carroll countians.
The impromptu relocation was heartbreaking for workers who
had poured heart and soul into ensuring Tennessee's guests
were welcome, well cared for, and their lives returned to
normal as soon as possible.
"I hope they're taken as good a care of in Franklin as they
were here," said McBride. "I can't say enough for local
people... in every aspect the people of Carroll County
opened their hearts and we could've done a lot more with a
little time."
Wade said she had asked her brother and sister, Keith and
Cicely Floyd from Nashville and Smyrna, respectively, and
other friends and family to be waiting for the survivors
upon their arrival in Franklin.
Volunteer Darlene Caldwell of Milan spoke for many of the
workers when she said, "You just can't help but to cry. I
was so excited to come and listen to their stories; they've
really taught me something--taught us something--they've
deeply touched our lives."
A news release by Governor Phil Bredesen Friday said the
state would be reimbursed for a large part of the expenses
related to sheltering and helping evacuees. As of Friday, he
estimated 1,979 evacuees were living at National Guard
shelters in Knoxville, Tullahoma, Milan, and Smyrna and
that, in all, an estimated 15,500 people had come to
Tennessee in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Huntingdon's First Baptist Church Pastor Fred Ward said two
families that drove to Tennessee ahead of the storm have
been living in a church-owned house next to their downtown
worship facility for about two weeks. Two of the children
are attending second and third grades in Huntingdon.
He said Sunday Schools have taken turns feeding the families
and a love offering taken last week garnered $17,000 for
Tennessee Disaster Relief and to help the local evacuees.
One of the women, who is pregnant, is now seeing a local
physician and two of the men have found local employment.
One of the evacuees accepted Christ as their savior since
their arrival, he said.
Four members of the church are in New Orleans helping those
who remain. John and Virginia Cole and their son Alan and
Lori Collins all went to help their southerly neighbors.
Ward said Collins drove down with a trailer full of goods
and is delivering meals in New Orleans. He expects the crew
to bring another family of four or five members with them
upon their return.
"Our church has really responded," he said. "Everybody's
pitched in and worked hard... They wanted to help and this
was an on-hands opportunity to do that."
At the Long Heights facility in McKenzie, the new residents
were well settled in by late afternoon. They joined a family
of five who had arrived days earlier at the McKenzie
shelter: Vincent and Misty Gary and their three children,
Marissa, Kaitlyn and three-year-old Vincent IV. The Gary
family had left Louisiana before the storm hit, expecting to
be able to go home within a few days.
Local children and newcomers play on the old Long Heights
playground. Pictured are, front row: Rebekah Edlin of
McKenzie, Marissa Gary, and Elizabeth Harper of McKenzie;
back row: Kaitlyn Gary and Jessica Smothers of McKenzie.
Marissa enrolled in McKenzie Elementary School Monday.
Now, Misty says, Marissa is excited about starting second
grade in McKenzie Monday, September 12. Kaitlyn will attend
preschool, she said.
"We've been here the past two nights," Misty said. "They've
treated us like family, gave us everything, got the kids to
the doctor for antibiotics."
Monday, she said, the family Chihuahua, Hershey, would be
seeing a veterinarian and the family would visit the Spivey
Eye Clinic.
Prior to Hurricane Katrina, Misty worked on the river as a
shipping clerk while Vincent was a cook for Applebees.
Joe Dillinger of New
Johnsonville and Son Tran enjoy sharing stories. Dillinger
attends First Baptist Church in Gleason. He and several
friends and relatives visited the shelter Sunday.
Among new arrivals, Son Tran and Toan Nguyen, originally
from Vietnam, seemed happy in their new abode. Son, a
resident of Algiers, Louisiana, for ten years, worked on a
fishing boat catching yellow fin tuna. Toan is a
construction worker.
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Friends Toan Nguyen and Son Tran, originally from Vietnam,
enjoy their new surroundings in McKenzie.
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Regarding the hurricane, Son says, wide-eyed, "I can't tell
you--it was scary--it was like coming back from the dead."
He sought safety in a closet while Toan weathered the storm
beneath a table. He spoke, as well, of walking through
knee-deep water after the storm subsided, of people
everywhere crying, and of stores being looted.
Lionel Lombard, from New Orleans, spent the afternoon
entertaining a small crowd with his stories of the storm.
"The wind was really frightening; it made you nervous," he
said, "But the next day the wind had subsided; and we've had
rain harder than that. There was trash in the streets but
that was no big deal. The power was off but the phones
worked and water was running. I took a walk down St. Charles
and it was all torn up."
Lionel Lombard entertains locals with stories of his
hurricane survival. Pictured with Lionel (left) are sisters
Carol McDaniel and Marilyn Douglas, and Coach Clarence
Barham. The visitors came from Gleason's Beech Springs
Baptist and First Baptist churches to visit with the area
newcomers.
He expected the city would recover in short order until that
evening when, from his second floor apartment balcony, he
saw rivulets of water coming together in the streets. Water
had breached the levee from below, accomplishing what
Katrina had not. By morning, he said, everything was wet.
"If the water hadn't come in extraordinarily, it would have
been fine," he said.
Relaxing in one of two family rooms at the McKenzie shelter,
friends Samuel Carter Jr., Anthony Royal, Alberto Casanova,
and Daniel Alexander watched football. They had stories too,
with haunting looks speaking of "dead people in the city."
"We walked in the water every day before evacuating," one
said.
Friends Samuel Carter Jr.,
Anthony Royal, Alberto Casanova, and Daniel Alexander watch
football in one of two family rooms at the McKenzie shelter.
James Daniels, of New Orleans, held out as long as he could
owing to his six cats and two dogs.
"I love New Orleans," he said. "I didn't want to go... It
was just like out of a horror movie; I waded water six whole
days."
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James Daniels reluctantly left his six cats and two dogs
behind in New Orleans during the mandatory evacuation.
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Before leaving, he turned his dogs loose and poured a bag of
cat food into several bowls for the cats, leaving the window
cracked open so they could come and go.
Couple Robert Pirie and Dorothy West lived in adjacent
apartments in New Orleans. Dorothy was a resident of Milan
before moving to Louisiana in the 60s.
After their apartment building burned to the ground
following the hurricane, they were transported by ambulance
to a medical center, then to an airport that took them to
Nashville, from which they were bused to Lavinia, before
finally arriving in McKenzie.
Segio Cobos and Lynn Thompson stayed in Mid City, New
Orleans, because they hadn't expected the storm would be
that bad. In fact, they said, had the levee stood fast, all
would have been well. Even after water flooded the city,
they held out until local officials stopped supplying water
and food. With their own supplies running low, they had no
choice but to leave.
Robert Pirie and Dorothy West lost everything they owned in
a fire subsequent to Hurricane Katrina.
The couple is full of gratitude. "I'd like to thank the
people of Milan and the people here because they've been
wonderful," said Sergio. They offered to us to come over
here; that's something we never expected, to be greeted like
this by the people in Tennessee."
From the Red Cross workers and volunteers in Lavinia to
those helping in McKenzie, he said, "Everything has been
good, wonderful...everybody has gone out of their way to
help us."
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Segio Cobos and Lynn Thompson were to have been married in
New Orleans September 30. The wedding may now take place
in Tennessee.
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In fact, he and Lynn noted, when the volunteers in Lavinia
discovered the two were to have been wed in New Orleans on
Sergio's birthday--September 30--they had arranged for the
wedding to take place in Tennessee instead, right down to
Lynn's bridal gown. The two said they are uncertain what
will happen now but that the social worker who was working
on the wedding would know they had moved to McKenzie.
That they would marry in Tennessee after surviving the
storm, they said, is fitting: "a new beginning, a new way of
living."
Also living at the McKenzie shelter are newlyweds Jacob and
Stacy (Burchum) Harwell of McKenzie. Jacob is a ministerial
student at Bethel where Stacey is enrolled in the nursing
program. The two serve as house parents for the facility.
Long Heights Pastor Kenny Carr mentioned that many of the
residents are seeking jobs within the local community and
had secured employment in Jackson before being moved.
McBride said Tuesday that Atlantic Homes in Henry, a maker
of manufactured
homes, has hired several of the evacuees. Atlantic has
ramped up its
production of homes, many of which are headed to the Gulf
states.
"Thank you to everybody in the community who has helped," he
said. "We ask that you please maintain your prayers for the
evacuees--because their needs are ongoing--and your support
for this mission."
