News and Views
Survivor's Tears
Note from the editor:
During Labor Day weekend, Sarah Coggins visited Camp Gruber, in Braggs, Oklahoma, with a group of OWU students who volunteered with the Red Cross to meet the needs of bus-loads of incoming evacuees from Louisiana. These students assisted with everything from helping evacuees make the transition from their buses to their barracks to the much more difficult task of trying to locate family members who had been separated during the evacuation. What follows is Coggins's account of a conversation that occurred on Monday, Sept 5. Evacuees' last names have been omitted or altered to protect their privacy.
On a mission to find several missing families, I walked slowly through each army barracks, stopping to ask if anyone could tell me where to find them. I had been searching for hours with no results. In one of the barracks' cinderblock corners, an elderly man sat hunched over on the bottom bunk. The sun glared through the small square window behind him, blinding me so much I strained to see his face or even his silhouette. I almost passed him by, but decided to stop. I leaned my head down under the top bunk and asked him if he knew the Deloux family. He didn't.
"But do you know my family?" he asked, with a voice tender and frightened.
"I'm sorry sir," I replied, as I felt my heart drop to the concrete beneath me. "I don't know your family."
The bright orange vest with the giant red cross on it was supposed to signify help, answers, relief. It was supposed to mean that I knew what to do, where to find these missing people, but instead these questions became the most difficult test of my life -- a dreaded exam that I kept failing over and over again.
He rested his elbows on his knees. His once-white undershirt was as worn and tired as he was. His long sparse curls were graying around his temples.
"We were separated," he said. As he began to tell his story his bottom lip trembled. I sat beside him on the long black wooden trunk at the foot of the bed. I leaned closer to hear his whisper.
He continued, "The water was rising, my family and I climbed to the roof of our house. And the helicopter came. It took my family, lifted them one by one: my wife, my daughter, and her children, and took them to high ground. I was the last one on the roof. The helicopter said they would come back for me ..." he paused and swallowed hard, then choked out the words: "but they never came back."
Slow tears began to roll down his cheek, but he never lifted his hand to wipe them away. He let them fall hopelessly without rescue.
He kept going, "So I waded through water up to my neck." He motioned with his hands, tilting his head back slowly and dragging his index finger across the width of his throat. "As I swam, dead bodies were floating all around me, just floating right past." Tears continued to fall down his face as he shifted his weight, re-adjusting nervously. He shook his head back and forth, never making eye contact, his gaze fixed on the concrete floor.
"I made it to the Superdome, but inside ..." he paused again, and with another hard swallow went on, "Women, young women, old, old women, were being raped, just right there, just there inside with no one to help them. Babies were being killed. Babies ..." his voice cracked and he paused for another moment and started again. "And there were men with guns who kept shooting at the helicopters. Even if the National Guard was there," he said, "they couldn't have stopped it. It was just that bad." He lifted his head and for the first time he looked right at me, his eyes locked with mine. "I was there for five days."
It took every ounce of strength I had to keep from melting into a pile of nothingness. I sat still and looked back into his dark eyes -- eyes so indescribably pained, hurting, broken, lonely, terrified.
I moved from the long wooden chest to the floor, kneeling beside him. "Sir, what's your name?"
"Albert," he replied.
"Albert, can I pray with you, would you like me to pray?"
"Yes, ma'am, I sure would."
I moved in a little closer and bowed my head. I prayed for Albert and his family, asking God to give him strength and comfort, to bring peace to Albert's heart. I smiled and said, "I'm sure glad you're here and safe, Albert."
He smiled back and said, "I am, too."
I walked away. Albert was in God's hands. I hoped he found strength in the cross, not the one I carried on my vest, but the one I pray he saw in me.
I continued searching for the missing families. I never found them.
From the editor:
Regarding the conditions inside the Superdome, details mentioned in this account are supported by other accounts, such as these from Reuters and from the Mirror. Others, such as this report from the Guardian, question the accounts, pointing out that many of them cannot be independently substantiated and may be apocryphal. A recent article from the New York Times (free, hassle-free registration required) gives one of the most detailed accounts, including insight into the official side of the picture. Notably, the Times finds official verification of at least some of the dire conditions described by others inside the Superdome, including a confirmation of at least 10 deaths.
Despite the discouraging first few days, there have been successes in reuniting separated family members. As of September 9, the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management reports that approximately 300 of the evacuees brought to Oklahoma have now been reunited with their families.
For latest information on how to assist the evacuees, see the updates and resources provided on Bartlesville's Katrina Project web site.