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Long road to recovery reveals Army’s commitment to Gulf Coast
By Jeff Jellets
The storm began as a cluster of
unruly thunderstorms swirling over
the Bahamas on Aug. 23, 2005. By the
next day, it had strengthened enough
to be christened with a name – Katrina
– before hitting Florida on Aug. 25 as a
moderate Category 1 hurricane. Katrina
weakened after passing over Florida,
downgraded to a tropical storm as it
reemerged in the Gulf of Mexico, and if
conditions were different, might have
been a barely remembered footnote for
the 2005 hurricane season.
Instead, Katrina stalled over
the warm waters of the Gulf and
strengthened, becoming a category 5
hurricane on Aug. 26 before changing
direction toward the central Gulf
coast of the United States. I remember
turning on the television that morning
and seeing the storm’s projected path.
“This is going to be bad,” I said to my
wife. “You say that about every storm,”
she said. “But this time,” I said, “it’s
going to be different.”
And it was. Hurricane Katrina
came ashore as a Category 3 hurricane
with winds of more than 145 miles
per hour and driving a record storm
surge of 27.8 feet into the Mississippi
coast – tossing the giant casino barges
of Biloxi onto the shore like toy boats.
In Louisiana, the levee system breached
catastrophically, flooding 80% of
New Orleans and most of the nearby
parishes. Katrina took the lives of 1,836
people and property damage exceeded
$81 billion.
Ken Cavallero, western territorial
disaster coordinator, recalled his first
day on the Mississippi Gulf Coast,
where the storm surge was at its worst.
“I was standing on the coast – Highway
90 near what was Pass Christian,
Mississippi. All that was left was sand
and debris. I wondered what Noah
must have thought after the flood.”
In Louisiana, conditions were just
as desperate. Flood water pouring into
the Big Easy surrounded The Salvation
Army’s Center of Hope, where Majors
Richard and Fay Brittle remained
behind to care for some 300 people
trapped in the city with nowhere else
to go. “The windows were blown out,
the heat was overwhelming and the
food and water supply was almost nonexistent. All lines of communication
were lost,” said Major Dalton
Cunningham, Alabama-MississippiLouisiana divisional commander at the
time. “On that Thursday helicopters
landed on the roof of The Salvation
Army shelter and everyone was
evacuated and all were alive. Two
years later, Major Richard Brittle was
The Salvation Army shelter in
New Orleans is named in honor
of Major Richard Brittle, who
risked his life to save hundreds of
people who couldn’t evacuate.
promoted to Glory from a rare form of
cancer that he got while wading in the
filthy flood waters rescuing people who
would have drowned otherwise. Before
he died, he testified that he had no
regrets. He would do the same thing
again if it would save someone’s life.
The Salvation Army building there is
named in his honor.”
“But the biggest problem,” said Lt.
Colonel Robert Tritton, appointed as
ALM unified commander a month
after Katrina made landfall, “was we
couldn’t get into New Orleans – they
couldn’t get the water out. People had
no place to stay – they were sleeping on
bridges and in parks, and we couldn’t
get into the town itself where the death
and devestation took place.”
In Jackson, Mississippi, an area
command team for the disaster
operation was established at divisional
headquarters. Even there, Katrina’s
impact was felt. “When Katrina made
landfall, it didn’t affect just the central
Gulf Coast. It also struck well inland. It
was still a Category 2 hurricane when it
came through Jackson, some 150 miles
away. It knocked out all of the power
for several days – that meant that our
command post, which was set up in the
chapel at DHQ, was without power for
about five days,” said Bill Feist, ALM
disaster director at the time.
The Salvation Army activated 178
canteens and 11 field kitchens and,
working in partnership with Southern
Baptist Disaster Relief, delivered 13.8
million meals, sandwiches, snacks
and drinks. All four U.S. territories
and the Canada & Bermuda Territory
contributed personnel to the relief effort
and, because the storm had devastated
Salvation Army facilities in Biloxi,
Gulfport, Pascagoula and New Orleans,
the disaster operation worked from
temporary facilities. In Mississippi,
an 182,000-square-foot warehouse
was donated and two giant Sprung
tents set up. One tent – which would
become the heart of The Salvation
Army’s long-term recovery efforts in
Mississippi – was erected on Biloxi’s
historic Yankie Stadium property.
The stadium was later converted
into Volunteer Village to house
reconstruction teams, before it was
eventually restored as a ball field when
the Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community
Center opened there.
In New Orleans, the family store
was the first Salvation Army facility
to be cleaned and, for many months,
served as a combination command
post and assistance center within the
city. For Major Rob Vincent, who
served as the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s
disaster recovery commander, that first
Christmas after Katrina remains one
of his fondest memories. Vincent and
his team concocted a drive-through
distribution center, serving some
57,000 people in just 11 days from four
locations.
Hurricane Rita – which added to
widespread flooding in southwest
Louisiana – was the fourth strongest
Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. The
storm weakened considerably before
landfall on Sept. 24, between Sabine
Pass, Texas, and Holly Beach, Louisiana,
with top winds of around 120 miles
per hour. Still, it remained a powerful
hurricane when it came ashore. The
Salvation Army mobilized disaster
teams in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and
Beaumont, Texas.
The road to recovery for these
ravaged coastal communities
was, perhaps, longer than most
people would have ever expected;
The Salvation Army’s long-term
disaster recovery programs, such
as the Envirenew Resilience project
initiated by Major Ethan Frizzell
and Lindsay Jonker, not only sought
to help neighborhoods rebuild, but
to help break the cycle of poverty
that was fundamental to so many
disaster survivors’ struggles. J