[StBernard] Church members still needed on Gulf Coast

[Westley Annis]

Church members still needed on Gulf Coast
BY LIZ CAREY | COMMUNITY PRESS STAFF WRITER
ANDERSON TWP. - Along the row of pitch black houses in Chalmette, La.,
members of Lutheran Church of the Resurrection saw a house, half lit and
furnished, half not.

Outside, a FEMA trailer stood, a poignant reminder of how little has been
done for some Gulf Coast residents now more than a year after Hurricane
Katrina.

The Anderson Township church members traveled to the area, now for the third
time, as part of their continuing mission to help residents there put their
lives back together.


 The sights there are no less shocking than the were when the church group
went to Slidell, La., more than a year ago.

"It was a powerful experience," Lutheran pastor Henry Zorn said. "Every time
we go down there, it seems more and more powerful."

This experience was different, he said. While parts of New Orleans and
Slidell, La., have been restored or at least are in the process of
restoration, buildings in Chalmette still suffer from hurricane damage and
the after effects of taking on feet of water.

"It's difficult to illustrate this in words, but imagine if EVERY house in
Anderson Township (or whatever community you live in) was destroyed. Imagine
that as you drive down ANY street in Anderson Township, only one house is
occupiable (sic), and FEMA trailers sit on every fourth house. That is the
situation in Chalmette and St. Bernard Parish School District. There is much
more work to do and the experts are estimating five to 10 years," wrote
Jason Leupen, a church member who went to Chalmette with the group.

"On Thursday, Gail from the St. Bernard Parish Public Schools stopped by our
work site. ... She shared that the school system had about 16,000 students
and 20 buildings (15 of which were schools) before the storm. At this point,
15 months after the storm, they have only two working buildings and only
about 3,500 students!! ... Of the students (and their families) that remain
in the school system, she estimated that less than 5 percent are actually
living in their homes. The rest are living in FEMA trailers on their
property or somewhere else."

Close to the Lower 9th Ward, which was devastated by Katrina, Chalmette has
not been helped as much as downtown New Orleans, Zorn said.

And much still needs to be done.

"We put up over 350 panels of sheet rock last week," Zorn said.

At Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Chalmette, where the group worked, a
daycare building attached to the church has been converted to dorm style
housing to make room for the hundreds of relief workers the area will need
for years to come.

"It's very real how much reconstruction still needs to go on down there," he
said. "When we went down the first time, we went to Slidell. It too was
devastated. Now, their main drag, what would be equivalent to our Beechmont
Avenue, is done. The residential areas beginning to be restored, but still
needs work. In Chalmette, our members mucked two houses there in June. We
drove by the two houses and they looked exactly the same as they had when we
left. It was disheartening. Hopefully, at some point the work will
progress."

For now, Zorn said, their work in the area will continue. The church plans
to return to the area twice a year next year and possibly for years to come.

"My guess is next year, we'll go back, probably during the last week in May
and the second week in November," he said.

And their work will continue here as well.

"We really feel like part of our mission is not just doing the work down
there, but getting the word out here when we come back," he said. "Let's
face it. For the most part, New Orleans has been forgotten about. It's off
the front pages and it's off people's minds. But everyone of us who goes
down there feels like we're in partnership with those down there who are
struggling every day."

Zorn also hopes to link together the St. Bernard Parish schools with those
in the Cincinnati area.

The real work will come, he said, not with building homes and schools, but
with building towns.

"I've come to realize that it's much more delicate to restore communities
than it is to restore buildings," he said. "It will never be the same. Here
you had these vibrant communities, but many of those who lived here have
moved away and started new lives. It will be a long time before the sense of
community returns."


lcarey at communitypress.com
248-7139