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Katrina was the worst, but brought out the best

Sep 3, 2009

By David Owens, newseditor@laurelleadercall.com
 

August 29, 2009 12:30 pm

— Hurricane Katrina taught the residents of Laurel many lessons when it brought its path of destruction to the city. But, what most remember about the deadly storm is how the community banded together and got through it.
Dan McKenna, Jones County volunteer fire coordinator, was serving as fire chief at Glade when the storm hit.
“Having not been from our area and having experienced earthquakes and large wildfires, it was something different and unusual,” he said. “I don’t think anyone was prepared mentally that the thing would actually come to us with the intensity that it did. That’s one of the biggest obstacles that we had to overcome. We tried to prepare for the worst and pray for the best.”
McKenna said one of the most frustrating things for him post-landfall was the inability to reach everyone affected by the storm.
“We couldn’t respond for our own safety,” he said. “There were potentially people that needed our help that we couldn’t get to until sometime after the incident. We lost radio communications. Cell phones and phones went down. Communication was really word of mouth. By the time it got to the fire department, the incident had usually been taken care of by neighbors which was great.”
McKenna recalls meeting a caravan of people helping cut down and remove trees, as he was clearing in front of his house on Highway 15.
“It was Mississippians helping Mississippians,” he said. “It didn’t matter where you were or where you came from. Everybody was pulling together to get the roads back open and checking on neighbors.
“It was rewarding to know that in a true time of disaster, people in the community really came out in force to not only help themselves, but help us and make our jobs easier,” McKenna added.
McKenna said the devastation of Hurricane Katrina shows that people need to stay prepared.
“Unfortunately, as we get farther and farther away from it, people in the community will forget about having to be able to self-sustain for three or four days,” he said. “If a swine flu pandemic breaks out in the fall or winter, certainly people need to be prepared for that.”
Don McKinnon, director of the Jones Co. Emergency Management Agency, agreed that one of the largest hurdles after Katrina was that the public wasn’t prepared.
“The biggest downfall throughout Jones County was that 90 percent or greater of the public made no preparations whatsoever,” he said. “There’s really nobody to blame. There were a lot of false alarms that year and people were suffering from what Gov. Barbour called hurricane fatigue. That played a major role in the public’s lack of preparedness.”
McKinnon said one of his agency’s biggest pushes since Katrina is preparedness.
“Once you get yourself prepared, get your neighbor prepared and then your street,” he said. “Make sure everybody is aware of it. It makes life so much easier for everyone. It frees public safety to open up roads and handle real emergencies that occur with a hurricane.”
McKinnon said the EMA is prepared to take care of “that segment of the population that lives day-to-day,” but noted it couldn’t handle the more than 60,000 residents that just weren’t ready.
“We did everything we can afford to do,” he said. “I will continue to make the statement, how much is enough and how much is too much. We could rent a warehouse and put ice in it just in case, but taxpayers don’t want to pay for that. There’s a lot of things we could do, but just can’t afford to do.”
McKinnon noted that the Emergency Operations Center has added some new equipment since Hurricane Katrina to further their preparedness in the future.
“We have three new travel trailers and a Weatherbug weather alerting system,” he said. “We also bought a number of generators for the city and county, as well as eight new tornado sirens. When hurricane winds come, they usually spin off tornadoes that do even more damage.”
According to statistics, more than 800,000 volunteers and national service members have responded since Hurricane Katrina struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast four years ago. Many of those volunteers have come through such organizations as the American Red Cross.
Peggy Owens-Mansfield, executive director of the Pine Belt Chapter of the American Red Cross, said Katrina “brought out the very best in people willing to volunteer.”
“I’ve worked a number of large storms, and Katrina turned out the most people locally from every walk of life,” she said. “They stepped up and asked what can I do. We also had hundreds of volunteers come in from other states such as North Carolina, Ohio and New Jersey.”
Owens-Mansfield credited area churches such as First United Methodist Church, Trinity Presbyterian Church and Calvary Baptist Church in helping house those volunteers.
“Red Cross volunteers know before they go out on a job that it’s a hardship,” she said. “There’s not a motel room and unlimited places to eat. They’re usually on a cot just like the people in the shelter. But without those volunteers, a lot of people wouldn’t have gotten they help they needed at the time.”
Owens-Mansfield recalled a cook from the Arkansas Baptist State Convention that prepared more than 60,000 meals a day. She said the Jones County School System also provided food that was set to spoil due to the lack of power. “Hamburgers and French fries was the first hot meal that many of us had,” she said.
Owens-Mansfield said corporations such as Wal-Mart, Howard Industries and Sanderson Farms also stepped up in a big way.
“Because when the wind quit blowing, it was obvious that there was no place to go and buy anything,” she said. “I can’t say we were prepared for what happened, but we were prepared as well as we thought we could be.
“Hurricane Katrina didn’t just change the geography of Jones County,” Owens-Mansfield added. “It changed our whole attitude about things that we take for granted. We just assume that we can turn the light switch on, or run to Wal-Mart 24 hours a day.”
Owens-Mansfield said the Red Cross learned a lot from Hurricane Katrina, calling it “the worst case scenario we’ll ever see.”
“We learned we have to be self-sufficient within the four counties and not expect outside help in less than four days,” she said. ‘That makes preparedness a little more difficult, but we’re up to the task. I feel confident that we’ll be better if another big storm comes.”

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