From JobScope Notebooks: One month after Hurricane Katrina

Battered Gulf Coast contractors, union down, but not out

By Don Doherty

There were television images of this hurricane that are hard to forget: driving wind and rain smashing windows and shredding curtains in a downtown New Orleans hotel; desperate people plucked from rooftops by rescue helicopters after the levee gave way flooding the city and nearby parishes; and in Mississippi other survivors, now homeless, their faces revealing in a way words cannot how it feels to lose everything you had in the world.

But on this sunny Sunday afternoon, it is not the pictures I recall but rather the comment of one reporter somewhere in Gulfport: “There are not suitable words to accurately convey the scope and severity of devastation visited upon this place. There is no camera lens big enough to record it all.”

Standing perhaps in the same spot almost four weeks after Katrina (and one day after hurricane Rita ripped the western Louisiana-Texas coast), I fully understand the reporter’s remark. Scattered debris covers the narrow street down which we pick our way, dodging tree limbs, overturned automobiles, wrecked houses and much of what was inside them. Through the blown-out ground floor of a funeral home, I can see white caps atop the Gulf of Mexico this hot, breezy afternoon and hear the surf as it rolls ashore a city block away. The clean up in this place has barely begun. Reminders of Katrina’s tantrum are everywhere.

Before sunrise on the morning of Aug. 29, the Gulf of Mexico roared ashore here, with a record surge that estimates put in excess of 30 feet. The floodwater’s force is registered on buildings like the funeral home and countless others facing the beach along Route 90. Washed away were the four brick walls and every utility, every furnishing inside. The steel columns that support the upper floors were all that remained, giving it the look of a structure built on stilts. It’s a picture I would see repeated in hotels, condominiums and stately southern mansions for miles along the coastal highway.

The hurricane was less merciful to residential homes within walking distance of the Gulf. Only a few are left standing. Through a sea of wreckage on one block a small concrete porch is all that has survived. It is the only thing left to mark the house of Mike (Mule) Locklin, a veteran member and current treasurer of U.A. Local 568. One of my tour guides on this day, Locklin, 58, points to a partially standing house down the street. He says the owner, who did not evacuate, told him that as he looked out his window he thought he saw Mule’s house implode as the surge water charged inland.

For Mule, a living example that lightning does strike twice in the same place, Katrina was devastation revisited on a home that had burned on Christmas Day 2003. It had been recently rebuilt only to be lost again. “He was fixing to have a house warming,” joked another member of the tour group.

Mule now lives with his mother further inland in Gulfport. The living arrangements for most other members of our 5-man touring party — Randall, Chip, Henry, even myself — were also changed, if not downgraded, by Katrina.

Randall Carroll’s home in Latimer, 15 miles inland, was spared by Katrina but not untouched. “We didn’t have power. Power lines were down everywhere. There was still water around, but we were dry inside,” he explained. “I had to cut trees out of my driveway so I could get in and out. We had to get a generator hooked up and running so we could at least get the house cooled for my mother who is elderly,” he said. Several other family members also took refuge in his home. Those lucky enough to have generators, however, didn’t find it easy to get the fuel necessary to run them, as local gas stations were either without power and closed, operating with absurdly long lines, or completely out of gas. Randall, who is an organizer for Local 568 and an officer for the Tri States Pipe Trades Association, said that once the gas situation was under control, he could turn his attention to work and union matters.

Before the storm, Wallace (Chip) Barnes, a union electrician, gathered his wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, his son and two grandchildren and drove to Mobile, Ala. When it had passed, he returned to Biloxi to find his home still standing. Others in his family were not as fortunate. Now all are living under his roof and helping each other through the crisis. “I thank God that He left one house in the family standing so we could all have a place to go and stay dry,” he said.

Henry Heier, administrator of the Pipe Council of Greater New Orleans, was living in a 117-year-old house in downtown New Orleans before the hurricane forced him and his wife, Amelie, to evacuate. They drove as far as Memphis to find an available hotel room. Almost a month after the flood, Henry still waits for New Orleans to reopen its door to evacuees eager to find out what’s left. He’s had one brief look since the floodwaters receded, but it was cut short when patrolling national guardsmen discovered him and promptly escorted him away. He remembers that the sight and smell of the place when he entered for the first time were enough to make him close the door and walk away realizing he was not yet ready to face it. Since then, Henry has spent his nights in a townhouse that belonged to his recently deceased father in St. Tammany Parish on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain. While the floodwater missed it, the wind blew off part of the roof letting in damaging rain.

Henry’s parlor couch is where I sleep during my visit, as hotel rooms are impossible to find anywhere within a day’s drive of New Orleans.

The tour began at Local 568’s union hall and apprentice training school in Gulfport, Miss. Businesses on both sides of the highway, as we drove south, displayed wounds inflicted by Hurricane Katrina — broken glass, torn roofs, partially destroyed walls. There were many other vehicles out this afternoon driven by relief crews, utility workers, insurance adjusters, and police. They also carried survivors getting on with the business of cleaning up. Handling the most routine tasks — grocery shopping, getting gas, picking up mail — now required more time and effort. Most stores were closed. Those that were open had “Help Wanted” signs posted prominently in their windows. Normal mail delivery was still suspended in many areas; you now went to the post office to pick it up and usually waited in long lines of cars.

The devastation grew worse the closer we got to the coast. Debris lay in heaps.

Heading east to Biloxi, we witnessed one example after another of this hurricane’s incredible fury. Many structures remained standing, but looked months, if not years, away from recovery. In between, them slabs with bits of foundations were all that remained of buildings erased by the storm. Small boats and large ones drifted inland on the surge, resting wherever the receding water left them — in backyards, behind schools, in the middle of a road as was the case with one large casino barge that was dynamited recently to clear the way. It was one of a half dozen casino boats along the Biloxi strip whose moorings were severed by the hurricane and hulls floated far from their berth.

Security was visible along this blighted stretch of coast that had grown into America’s third most popular gambling destination, behind Las Vegas and Jersey City, N.J. From Gulfport to Biloxi, checkpoints manned by national guardsmen worked with patrolling Humvees and police cruisers and to keep unwanted people out. Randall affixed magnetic signs to the sides of our two vehicles, identifying us as disaster relief contractors. They were our passes to enter the disaster zone.

The eastern leg of our tour ended at the (almost) brand new Hard Rock hotel and casino in downtown Biloxi. Only two days from its grand opening when Katrina called, the hotel now might more aptly be named “Hard Luck.” Like its neighbors along the strip, it’s status now one of emergency repair and rebuilding. Randall Carroll said mechanics from the union are testing plumbing and piping lines on the bottom three floors for leaks before they can be recertified. From the street, the hotel doesn’t look too worse for the wear. However, behind it where the water meets the building, the picture gets ugly. Here the completed 300-foot casino barge was blown away from the main deck up. What remains of the hull is pushed off its concrete cradle and lists badly to one side — a total loss!

It’s anyone’s guess how long it will take for the Hard Rock to actually hold its grand opening — or for the other victims of Hurricane Katrina to return to normal. The hotels and gaming industry have maintained their pledge to see through it and rebuild. That is good news for the people whose livings rely on the hundreds of jobs brought to the area, and it’s good news for the state of Mississippi, which derives a significant portion of its tax income from the coastal resort district. However, the resort companies want to build land-based casinos in the future. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour petitioned the state legislature for a new law striking the requirement that gambling facilities be built on watercraft. Future casinos will now be on dry land, as long as they are within 800 feet of the water.

What Katrina could not conquer

Leaving the Hard Rock, we head north away from the disaster zone. I suspect we are close to the Alabama state line and ask. Mobile, in fact, is a little ways east, I am told, but we cannot get there from here as the bridge was destroyed by the hurricane. We soon leave the highway and enter a residential area. This neighborhood seems to have come through the storm well. The homes are modest and well kept. The streets still have standing trees. We pull into the driveway of one of the homes, belonging to Chip, and leave our vehicles. At the front porch of the small wooden house, we are warmly greeted by Karnmen, Chip’s wife, and Wilfred Wade and his wife, Karnmen’s parents. They invite us into their den.

Wade, 83, takes his place in a comfortable chair by the door. His wife sits next to him. He is dressed very well today in his Sunday best, I note, and grateful for the visitors who have come. (In spite of the fact that he is not in his own house nor is he wearing his own clothes, I later learn.)

Wade jokes with everyone in our party, some of whom he knows from the union. The retired business manager of Local 568 enjoyed a long career as a pipe fitter and plumber, a life that began after military service in World War II.

Living near the Gulf most of his life, Wade is no stranger to hurricanes. You hide out someplace safe for a few days and then come home, clean up. Afterwards life goes on for those who live here. That’s the way it is.

But every once in awhile a Katrina comes along and takes away everything you have…or does it? It’s when things are at their worst that people so often are their best. Most things that can be replaced, in time, usually are. And the irreplaceable becomes even more precious. Those who survive a catastrophe like Katrina feel people draw nearer and in so doing grow dearer. There is evidence throughout the day to support this.

Today the old man focuses, it seems, on his blessings. He is thankful, he says, for the clothes, food and support that he’s received from his union, which has set up disaster relief efforts for people like him who need a little help. He is also thankful for the family that has taken him under their roof — and, at his age, for the joyful gift of living another day. Many members of this very challenged but determined group I have met share his sentiments.

When the visit is over, I am invited to return. I offer a promise to do so. It will be something to see, I think, how they overcome this setback and restore this beautiful place. And something to celebrate.