Published: July 04, 2008 08:44 pm            

EXTRA MILER: Columnist finds Extra Milers on trip to New Orleans

EDITOR’S NOTE: Carol Dawson recently traveled to New Orleans to accept her Will Rogers Humanitarian Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. As part of its annual conference, the group toured some portions of the region deluged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This is the first of two reports from her trip. The second installment appears in Sunday’s editions.



The good people of New Orleans send Southern Indiana this message: Please don’t forget about us, and don’t think of us as lazy people.

My journey to understanding why the people of New Orleans want us to know these things began at the Memphis, Tenn., airport.

My husband accompanied me on a recent trip to New Orleans for a National Society of Newspaper Columnist convention. With fear of impending starvation on the Memphis airport tarmac, we headed to the snack area before our flight. There was no table open; however, a brawny man with a New Orleans/New York accent invited us to join him as he ate lunch with his wife.

Joe and Irma Pizzuto were heading home to New Orleans and I asked, “Did Katrina seriously affect you and your family?” I would find out in the next four days just how seriously affected everyone in the New Orleans area was by the storm and how it would forever change the landscape of their lives.

The Pizzutos grew up in St. Bernard Parish, a community southeast of New Orleans. Joe and Irma planned to live out their retirement years in the house where they raised their family. They couldn’t have imagined that within weeks after Joe’s retirement from the railroad business, their lives would change so drastically.

Katrina flooded 100 percent of St. Bernard Parish, a thriving and hard-working community of 67,000. Virtually every home and business was declared uninhabitable. Everything was wiped out — homes, schools, businesses, parks and restaurants. With their homes, possessions were lost — antiques, financial papers, precious photo albums, clothes, yearbooks and boxes full of mementos of their lives.

Jobs were lost, family was scattered across the country and the neighbors and friends they grew up with were gone. More than 200 resident of the Parish lost their lives in the flood. Storms were fairly typical to the residents in the New Orleans area, but nobody could have predicted Katrina’s all-inclusive destruction.

Joe and Irma thought the worst was over with the storm; however, there was yet more heartbreaking news. Our conversation spilled into the gate waiting area as Irma, a petite woman with an easy smile, spoke of their greatest loss.

Irma spoke through tear-filled eyes as Joe slumped back into the chair, quietly, “Joe’s mother was in the nursing home that didn’t evacuate.” She paused, trying to hold back her emotion, “She was bedridden and we had been told she would be evacuated.”

Joe moved forward and added, “We lost her along with 34 other patients and it took months to find and identify her.” He added, “This put everything else into perspective.”

“We didn’t just lose our homes, we lost so much more — we lost our family, our friends our entire community and way of life.” Irma explained.

It has been three years since the Katrina disaster and the pain is still obvious. Joe and Irma talked about how important it was for them to “come home.”

As soon as the government allowed, Joe and Irma Pizzuto began making trips to what was left of their house. They spoke of returning to find everything dead — no trees, no grass and no birds. Determined to make their place a home again, Joe eventually rebuilt and then started on his daughter’s home down the street.

This comeback has not been an easy task. Few of the Pizzutos’ neighbors and businesses have returned. Flood insurance wasn’t thought to be needed in their area and there was little government support for individual families; therefore rebuilding has been slow.

There is still no hospital, and there are only a few schools open in this once-thriving Parish. As a sign of St. Bernard’s revitalization, its only high school had a sign out front encouraging residents to drop by for a car wash fundraiser.

They yearn for “pre-Katrina” when every lot had a home and children laughed and played throughout their neighborhood. So they came back. They came back because this is their home — their love for their community is firmly grounded deep in their hearts and there isn’t wind or rain strong enough to steal that away.

Joe and Irma set an example for Southern Indiana and the rest of the United States by keeping their faith during the most difficult of times and showing great fortitude to rebuild their lives and their community. They, along with all who are rebuilding, are Extra Milers for St. Bernard Parish and for Southern Indiana.



Carol A. Dawson is a resident of Jeffersonville and owner of EEO Guidance, Inc. If you have seen or been a part of an act of kindness or know an Extra Miler, please let her know about it. To submit a story or act of kindness, contact Carol via e-mail: Extra.Milers@newsandtribune.com or mail: THE EXTRA MILERS, The Evening News, 221 Spring St., Jeffersonville, IN, 47130-3340.

        

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