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The Refuge
We dodged the bullet. Jean and I had moved off the seminary campus after living there for ten years to the Westbank across the Mississippi River, which was one of the few areas of the city that did not flood. We lost trees and had some minor roof damage, but our home was spared. We were not able to move back for two months while Jean’s law office in New Orleans was out of commission, but during our time in Jackson, and all during the months that followed as New Orleans slowly drained the stagnant water, shoveled the toxic sludge, and struggled to come back to life, our home was a place of refuge for seminary families and others who who spent many weekends there. After we ourselves were able to return to our home at the beginning of November, we continued to host seminary families who needed a place to stay and took care of seminary students who were struggling to finish courses for December graduation, some by independent study, staying at our house on weekends. In the spring of 2006 we fed early campus returnees with good, homecooked meals.
The Rebuilding
Ever since Katrina destroyed most of New Orleans, Jerry has volunteered at the Baptist Crossroads/Habitat site in the devastated Lower Ninth Ward each summer. He also has led a group of seminary students to the Ninth Ward construction site each anniversary of Katrina in conjunction with the seminary’s Katrina Work Day observation. On the anniversary of Katrina, seminary classes do not meet, and teams of seminary students go out all over New Orleans to work and minister in many sites. Jerry takes his team to the Crossroads/Habitat site each year. Their team was greeted by President George W. Bush on the first anniversary of Katrina in 2006. They shared in prayer with the president, which was a highlight for the students and everyone.
The Evacuees
Everyone at the seminary was under great duress during this entire process. The campus was destroyed. No one could live there. Those who lived on campus, including our precious students, lost all they owned. All administration had to relocate to our Atlanta extension center campus. All our computer services had to move and reboot in Atlanta. All classes had to be ported to the Internet to enable students to continue the fall courses they just had begun. We were an entire seminary—students, faculty, administration, staff—in exile. Now, when I think back to those days, I cannot believe what we did. We still had graduation exercises that December in a church in Birmingham, AL!
We wound up spending two months at Jean’s mother’s in Jackson, where I continued teaching classes from an Internet connection in a back bedroom. The Jackson State Fair came to town while Jean and I were Katrina evacuees staying at her mother’s house in the fall of 2005. We were under a lot of stress in those days, and the state fair was a nice diversion for a moment. We always think of the Jackson State Fair fondly, as we attended the fair during college days at Southern in Hattiesburg. Jean still has a stuffed dog I won for her back in those days. (I apologize for the poor video. All we had at the time was a rinky-dink cell phone camera.)
The images and videos of the broken levees were all over the news. Then, the news media left, and the nation’s attention turned elsewhere. People whose lives were completely destroyed, their accumulated life possessions pushed outside and piled high into the median of the street, were left to their misery. Many families simply never returned. Their lost homes were left as they were the day after the storm, stinking of rot, decay, mold, and mildew as they sat in dank water for weeks. When the waters finally receded, a toxic blanket of grey sludge covered everything like a nuclear winter in New Orelans East, Chalmette, Ninth Ward, and elsewhere.
