Pearl River, La. Church of the Nazarene (2 December, 2010)
On 31 August 2005 I was watching the news concerning the victims in Louisiana and Mississippi from hurricane Katrina, when I was suddenly overcome with a wave of compassion and grief unlike anything I have ever felt (I don’t really know how else to describe it). I immediately began praying to the Lord to show me a way I could go down there and help. I went on the Nazarene Compassionate Ministries website (www.ncm.org) which said Rev Roy Shuck was coordinating volunteers to deliver supplies to a Nazarene church in Pearl River, Louisiana, located just north of New Orleans. The article included a phone number to call if anyone was interested in joining the group. I talked to my wife, and we both agreed that we should obtain as many supplies as our truck could hold, and drive down to Pearl River if Rev Shuck thought we should. I then called Rev Shuck and explained to him what we wanted to do, he told me that we should do it, and to keep in touch with him on my cell phone.
We went to our local Acme and talked to the manager (Glen), who said he couldn’t authorize any donations, but he would give us all the support we needed to gather the necessary supplies. We started with water, unsure as to how many cases my truck could hold, I bought 20 cases, and with the help of Glen’s employees, loaded them into my truck. After surveying the room left, I felt we could squeeze in another 20 cases, so I bought them, and the guys at the store helped load them. We then bought 4 cases of tuna, many boxes of granola bars (everything on the shelf), several large jars of peanut butter, dozens of packages of snack crackers and several dozen canned goods such as ravioli, spaghetti, etc. When we were through my truck was completely packed (and we hadn’t even put in our personal luggage for the trip yet!!!!). My truck bed was sagging and my rear tires were dangerously overloaded.
On the way home from the store Dodie had an excellent idea of rearranging the load so that the heavier cases of water were stacked up in the extended cab of the truck, instead of the bed. We did this and the load on the rear of the truck was much better. With the seats up, we were able to stack 29 cases of water and still fit in all the canned goods, peanut butter, and tuna in the extended part of the cab. The boxes of crackers went in the bed, along with the 11 cases of water that were left. The bed no longer sagged and the tires looked much better. When our daughter Erika came home from her job at the local store in Alloway (Bud’s Market), the owner (Pat Ayars) had given her a couple boxes of supplies to take with us, which included medical supplies, diapers, and baby formula. Somehow we managed to squeeze this into the back of our truck, along with our two travel bags and sleeping bags, we then went to bed to try and get a little sleep before our trip.
The next morning (1 September, 2005), we left around 5 am for Pearl River, Louisiana. I called Rev Shuck to let him know we were on our way, and he stressed to me to come in from the north, not the east, as the roads from the east were pretty much impassable. The trip was fairly uneventful until we stopped just north of Chattanooga, Tennessee for gas and dinner. It was almost 5 pm and I decided to call Rev Shuck to find out if he had any updates about accessibility to Pearl River. When I talked to him he informed me that he had reports that there was no gas from Jackson, Ms. going south and from Pensacola, Fla. going west, and that if possible, we should try to find gas cans at a Walmart, or any other store that might have them. We found a Walmart and discovered they were completely sold out of gas cans. We went to a K-mart, a Home Depot and it was the same story. I was about to give up when I saw a Lowe’s and decided to try there, even though I didn’t expect to have any luck. Instead of wasting time I just went up to an employee and asked him if they had any gas cans. He chuckled and said they had sold out a while ago. When I told him why we were trying to find them he thought a minute then asked if I thought kerosene cans would do. I said I didn’t really know, but I didn’t see why not. He then took me to a rack that had (6) 5-gallon kerosene cans on it. He asked another employee if you could put gas in them and was told yes, that they were actually stronger than gas cans. I was still worried about the legality of it, and asked if they thought it was against the law to put gas in kerosene cans, and they both said not that they were aware of. As I was talking a gentleman came up and took one of the cans, so rather than waste any more time, I took 4 of the 5 cans that were left, which would give me a 20 gallon reserve (my truck gas tank holds 20 gallons). So now, based on the mileage I had been getting from a full tank of gas, I knew I would be able to go at least 300 miles, and probably quite a bit more if I watched my speed and didn’t use the air conditioner. As I talked with the employee at Lowe’s he said that he had heard that there was no gas south of Chattanooga, but that was unsubstantiated. We then had to move stuff around in the back of our truck to make room for the kerosene cans and that was not an easy task. We managed to pile some of our stuff on top of the water cases in the extended cab, and finally made the kerosene cans fit. We then went back to the gas station, filled the 4 kerosene cans, and topped off our truck tank. When I went to put one of the cans in the back of the truck, gas began pouring out of the vent on the spout, and I began to panic. I quickly figured out that the cap was not seated correctly, and there wasn’t a good seal on the spout, which was creating a siphoning effect. When I took the cap off and reseated it, the leakage stopped. I was very afraid at this point. My mind was telling me that this was madness, that I was driving my truck with a loaded bomb in the back of it (I was well aware of what could happen if these cans leaked, or we had an impact to the back of our truck). I went into the restroom at the gas station to wash my hands and began praying to the LORD to please give me courage.
We began driving again and my mind quickly began doing mental calculations. I asked Dodie to figure out how far Birmingham was from Pearl River, and she calculated it was approximately 285 miles. I knew if we could get a full tank of gas at Birmingham, we should have enough gas to get down to Pearl River, and with the 20 gallons in reserve, enough to get back out. I also told Dodie that once we got past Birmingham we would start stopping every 30 miles or so to top off our tank, until we couldn’t find gas anymore. We entered Alabama about 10 pm and were both exhausted, so we began thinking about a place to stop. We stopped at a rest area and found out that there were several motels at Gadsden, Alabama, which was right down the road, so we decided to stop there. After we started back on the interstate we saw a sign for a motel at the next exit (before Gadsden) and we changed our plans and pulled off there. There was only one motel (a Howard Johnson) and it had a room available, so we took it. As I was talking to the desk clerk he asked if we were heading north, when I told him no, we were heading south, he informed me that he had heard there was no more gas south of Gadsden, which did little to calm my fears.
When we got in our room we watched some news about the terrible disaster that was occurring in New Orleans, and I decided to myself (I didn’t mention it to Dodie) that we were going to take the supplies down, even if it meant we wouldn’t have enough gas to get back out. My thoughts also became obsessed with the diapers and baby formula that the store owner (Pat Ayars) had donated, and I didn’t know why. It was all I could think about, and the thought went through my head that if we ran into someone on the trip down who had left the storm area, and had a baby, we would give them the baby stuff. I even asked Dodie if the powered formula could go bad or expire. I kept thinking about it right up until I fell asleep.
The next morning we woke up, checked the gas cans to make sure there was no leakage, topped our tank off at the only gas station at the exit, and started back on the interstate around 5 am. We had only gone a couple miles down the road when I saw flashers in the distance, as we got closer we saw a man frantically waving his arms next to a broken down pick-up truck. Dodie yelled at me to “PULL OVER, PULL OVER!!!”, so I did. Before we had gotten out of the truck the gentleman ran up and said his tire was destroyed, and he had no spare, and wondered if we could take him down the road to try and find a place where the tire could be repaired. My first thought was how were we ever going to fit the tire and him in our truck, but something inside told me that I had to help this guy. So I moved things around, found a little more room on top of the water cases, moved stuff in the seat between Dodie and I to the back, and unbelievably managed to squeeze the tire into the back, next to the kerosene cans. With Dodie almost sitting on my lap, we even managed to fit the guy in the cab with us. As we were making room in our truck, I noticed that there were two other people in the truck, a man and a woman, and as we began traveling down the road, the guy who went with us began telling us why he needed to get the tire fixed so badly. It turned out that he had already made one trip down to southern Mississippi to pick up the woman who was in the truck with him. She was a friend of the other guy. When they had been down there they were not able to find the woman’s niece, who had a newborn and an older baby, so they left and brought the woman back to Tennessee. At 11 pm that night, the niece had finally been able to call them and told them that the newborn was very sick, and she had no way to get to a doctor. She asked if they would please come back down with gas, so she could drive herself and the kids out of the area, and get the baby to a doctor. Dodie and I both looked at each other and we both knew at once why I had been so obsessed with the baby stuff. Later Dodie would point out that if we had gone on to Gadsden like we planned, we never would have been in the right place at the right time to pick up this man.
We went down two exits and didn’t find anything, finally at the third exit we found a super Walmart with an auto shop, but it didn’t open for another 45 minutes so we decided to wait. While waiting I had the gentleman call the people at his truck on my cell phone, so they would know why it was taking so long. The woman that was with them had a cell phone. I went into the store part, which was open (24 hours) and looked to see if they had gas cans. I was told that if there were any they’d be up front so I went and asked one of the managers at the front. She went into a little room and brought out the only 5 gal can left, and said I could have it if I wanted it. Again unsure if I could fit it in or not, I bought it just in case.
After the tire was fixed, and we managed to fit it into our truck (which was even harder now because the tire was no longer flat), along with the extra gas can, we headed back to the broken down truck. We had to go back an extra exit, and then come back, but we managed to get there. As we were traveling, we all got a chuckle when we finally introduced ourselves by name and found out that the guy’s name was Bill (same as mine). I told Bill that a year and a half ago we never would have stopped for someone along the road like we did today, that before the LORD saved us we never would have considered doing what we were doing with these supplies. He didn’t say much but I could tell that he was doing some deep thinking. When we got Bill back to the truck and got the tire out, I got the diapers and formula and told Bill to take them, that I thought the Lord wanted him to have them for the babies. All he could do was thank us over and over.
Back on the road we stopped to top our tank off and filled the additional gas can, which now gave us 25 gallons reserve. I was beginning to believe we might just make it down there, although I assumed that at some point we would be running into road blocks by National Guard, law enforcement, etc. I also assumed that once we got on highway 59, which is the main interstate running from Meridian, MS to New Orleans, that we would hit a huge traffic jam with all the relief vehicles I assumed by now (4 full days after the hurricane),would be heading down with help. Rev Shuck had told us if anyone tried to stop us to tell them we were with Nazarene Disaster Response (NDR), but I didn’t know how much weight that would pull in a disaster of this magnitude. I thought if they wouldn’t let us go past a certain point, we would find somewhere to leave our supplies, where the National Guard or some other relief organization could take them down. I assumed they would have some kind of plan in place for things like that. Much to my surprise I was to find out that no such plan existed.
When we reached Birmingham there was still gas available so we stopped and topped our tank off. Now I was fairly confident that we could make it down and back on the gas we had, even if there was no more available from there on out. As we drove around Birmingham I thought about how I had stayed there for a few weeks over 30 years ago, after I graduated from high school. I had stayed with a childhood friend whose dad was a Nazarene minister. I knew that Rev Smith had passed away, and I knew that Mrs. Smith and her family, including my friend (Jack), still lived in the Birmingham area, but I didn’t have the time to stop and try to find them. I think Rev Smith would be very happy knowing that Dodie and I had given our lives to the Lord, and had become members of the Nazarene church. When I stayed there as a teenager my life was anything but that of a Christian, and it made me realize how things had come full circle.
At Tuscaloosa we filled up for the last time, when I stopped about 30 miles south of Tuscaloosa, all the stations were dry. Shortly thereafter we entered Meridian Mississippi and it felt like we had left America. From the interstate we could see that there were a couple stations that had gas, but we could also see that the lines went down the road as far as you could see (quite literally miles). It was like we had entered a third world country. We were already beginning to see damage from Katrina, and we were still over a hundred miles away. There were road signs twisted and blown over, with trees uprooted everywhere, and occasional houses with parts of roofs gone. We listened to Mississippi Public Radio and what we heard sounded like some horrific apocalypse. We heard people talking about waiting in line 8 hours to buy gas. We heard an owner of several Exxon stations describe how he was doing everything he could to get gas to keep a couple of his stations open. He described how people were waiting in line for hours, with little children and babies, and how they were running out of gas waiting in line, and how he, his father and brother were personally taking gas in cans to them to try to get them up to the pumps, but then the station itself would run out of gas before they could get up there. Then he began crying, overcome by his emotions, and I cried too.
By Hattiesburg I had expected to run into roadblocks, or lines of backed up traffic, but still there was nothing but other pick up trucks likes ours. Most of them had Louisiana plates, and most of them had rigged up methods for carrying gas, 55 gallon drums, plastic containers used by farmers for fertilizer, gas and kerosene cans strapped to their vehicles, anything that would hold gas. It was then that I realized what these people were doing. They were making trips up to areas where there was gas and supplies, loading up their trucks, and then going back down. They were making trip after trip to get supplies to their families and communities. It was then I realized that there was no relief effort, that there was no organized plan in place to help these people, that they were on their own, and they were doing whatever they had to do to survive. It was a sobering thought as the Louisiana trucks raced by us going south, packed with cases of water, generators and other supplies, while in the north bound lanes you could see other trucks with their homemade gas containers racing north to pick up more supplies.
At Hattiesburg it was complete devastation, there were no power lines left. They were lying in twisted piles alongside the interstate, along with the electrical towers they once rested on. They snaked across the roadway giving me a chill every time we thumped over one. I wasn’t worried about power being in them, because there was no infrastructure to supply power of any kind, but I was worried about flat tires. The trees and debris piled up alongside the road was incredible. I told Dodie that the effort which went into clearing this highway must have been Herculean. I assumed it had been a coordinated effort by federal and state workers. It was only later; watching a CNN report that we learned it had been cleared by people who had evacuated the New Orleans/Slidell area. Using their own chain saws and muscle, they had cleared the road 1 foot at a time on their way back down the day after the hurricane hit. It had taken them hours to snake their way down highway 59 back to what was left of their homes.
Other than the steady thump thump of driving over power lines, and the fear of puncturing a tire with something unseen, the rest of our trip to Pearl River was uneventful which said something by itself. Why was no one in charge? Why were two people like us allowed to simply drive into a devastated, dangerous area like this without running into some kind of organized group in control? We saw dozens of cars alongside the road that must have been caught in the storm, covered with trees and debris. I assumed that they were empty, but to be honest, I didn’t have the courage to stop and check them out. I’m not sure what I could have done even if I had found a body in them. We saw destroyed buildings and even saw a tractor-trailer lying on its side as if it were some play toy, which had been turned over by the child playing with it.
When we reached the church of the Nazarene in Peal River there were people walking around the streets, zombie like, with no seeming purpose or destination. We went inside the church and found Reverend Thomas Allen in his office. He looked tired and worn out, but he greeted us cordially and came outside to help unload our truck. As we unloaded the truck he told us it was estimated there were 300-500 bodies in the Pearl River which flowed through the town, and about a woman who had died of dehydration in a shelter just the night before. There was a semi-trailer with supplies parked in the church parking lot, which a group of volunteers from Arkansas had managed to bring down, and Rev Allen told me they were planning on handing out the supplies that night when it was cooler. Rev Allen was one of the bravest men I have ever met. He never complained about anything, and only once did he voice something that I had been thinking all along. He wondered aloud why there wasn’t dozens of helicopters in the sky, bringing in supplies, and I didn’t say a word, what could I say, what could anyone say?
I couldn’t help but feel how small the supplies we brought were compared with the need. It felt like a drop in an ocean. But then I remembered a skit I had seen at the Nazarene Philadelphia District Assembly, about a man standing on a beach with thousands of stranded starfish, and he began picking them up, one at a time, throwing them back into the ocean to save their lives. Another man came along and said “What are you doing, there’s millions of these things, what difference can you possibly make?” Stooping down to pick up another stranded starfish, the man threw it back into the ocean and said “I made a difference to that one didn’t I”. I told that to Rev Allen and he seemed to appreciate it.
Dodie and I had planned on staying to help in anyway we could, but it was obvious that not having any special training or area of expertise, such as medical or search and rescue experience, we were only going to become two more mouths to feed and worry about. It was very clear that what these people needed was supplies and experts, and we certainly weren’t experts. So I asked Rev Allen if he had enough people, or if there was anything in particular that Dodie and I could do, and if not, we were going to get back in our truck and drive out so we wouldn’t be two more people he would have to worry about. He said there wasn’t anything that we could do, and he thanked us again for the supplies, telling me that we had helped more than we could ever imagine.
On the way out Dodie and I both avoided looking out over the Pearl River, after what Rev Allen had said about the 300-500 bodies, but we couldn’t help but notice the sheet of plywood hanging in front of one property with the words “LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT!!!” painted on it. Now I began to concentrate on getting out and returning to the place called America.
The trip up highway 59 was just as uneventful as the trip down, until we had to pull over to put gas in our tank. We pulled into what had once been a rest stop, but was now just a strip of pavement. Several other vehicles had pulled over and everyone parked away from each other. I think that was because we were all thinking the same thing: ‘How far would a desperate person go to get their hands on the gas that we were all carrying?’ This thought was heavy on my mind as I opened the back of my truck to get out the first 5-gallon can. As I poured the first can I hadn’t noticed Dodie move around to the back of the truck, so when I saw her motion out of the corner of my eye I flinched and almost dropped the can. All I could think of was somebody was attacking me. When I realized it was her I mumbled something and she knew why I was so scared. Talking later, she told me the same thoughts had been going through her head, even though neither one of us had mentioned it to the other, we didn’t need to mention it, you could taste it. I put 15 gallons (3 cans) in the tank and we got back on the road. About 200 miles later we reached the exit outside Tuscaloosa that had no gas. Even though we had gas to go farther, we were both extremely dehydrated and there was a Burger King there, so we decided to stop and get something to drink. There was also a Comfort Inn a little ways up the road and we debated trying to get a room there, because there weren’t many cars in the parking lot, but decided to get something to eat and drink first, then decide.
There were cars parked everywhere in the Burger King and the two adjacent truck stop parking lots, and at first I didn’t make the connection, but when we were inside the Burger King I heard people talking and realized that most of the people there had no gas and couldn’t go any farther. There were rumors that there was going to be a gas shipment the next day, so they were waiting in the parking lots until it arrived. Again I began thinking about the 10 gallons still in the back of my truck, and just how far somebody would go to get it. Dodie and I hurried up and ate and didn’t think anymore about trying to get a room there. The feeling of desperation was just too great, and the sun was starting to go down.
Back on the road we continued towards Birmingham. We went around the city and it was getting late, we were both very tired so we began looking for a place to stay. We got off at an exit which had several motels advertised and found a Howard Johnson. The lobby was full of donated items for the evacuees of the hurricane areas, and flyers announcing a picnic for the victims of the hurricane to be held on Labor Day. I realized then that most of the people staying there were evacuees. As I stood at the desk waiting, I was behind a woman who was verbally berating the clerk, who was trying very hard to be patient. The woman was upset because her room key didn’t work and she had made several trips back down to the lobby to get it fixed. The clerk was visibly shaking as the woman called him several derogatory names and complained about how she was a refugee and had been up since 3 am and didn’t need this sh@*. The clerk quietly fixed her room key and gave it back to her. As I stepped up to the counter the lady began telling me what an idiot he was, as she spoke the clerk quietly excused himself and went into a back room and the lady left. He was a big man and was very tired looking and I could only assume that he had heard many sad stories that day and probably taken a lot of verbal abuse from frightened, upset people. I waited several minutes for the clerk to return, while I waited 2 more people arrived to see if there were any rooms available. When he returned I could tell that he had been crying, but quickly regained his composure, gave us a cordial greeting, and looked in the computer to find there were 4 more rooms left, so I took one of them. I realized then that the evacuees weren’t the only victims of Katrina.
The next morning we got on the road about 6 am and began talking about what we could do with the 10 gallons of gas we still had. As we talked I began to think about where people would go who were on the road without much money or resources, and as I thought about it a sign for a rest area appeared. A voice in my head said pull in there, so I did. It didn’t take us long to figure out where the poor evacuees from Louisiana had spent the night. The rest area had plenty of cars with Louisiana plates. As I looked around I spotted a group of 4 cars with Louisiana plates, which had young children and babies lying on blankets in the grass. I walked up to them and asked if they needed gas and they said no. Then I talked with them some more and found out they had left the New Orleans area and weren’t going back. I mentioned that there was no gas south of Tuscaloosa and one of the ladies in the group said she knew, and told how they had waited for 6 hours to get gas with their babies and children. I told them we had gone down to Pearl River to take a load of supplies to a Nazarene church and that we had 10 gallons of gas left, which we had no use for, because we were heading back to NJ, and they were welcome to it if they wanted it. They looked at each other and told us they could use it and thanked us several times. I gave them the gas (cans and all) and realized that their pride had first prevented them from saying yes. I think it was that same pride that was preventing them from heading to the shelter in Baton Rouge, or several other places. I wondered how many people there were out there like them. Proud people, from proud backgrounds, too proud to take a hand out. Proud families, with babies and children, and no place to go.
When we got back to the Chattanooga area we stopped at another rest area. This one had no evacuees. It was full of happy, laughing people on their way to various Labor Day events. It felt like America again.
We took a different route back home. Instead of staying on highway 75 up to Knoxville and highway 40, we cut across the mountains towards Gatlinburg, which takes you through the Smoky Mountains and some of the prettiest towns and scenery in America. It felt so odd to be in such a festive, beautiful atmosphere, full of vacationers and people enjoying labor day weekend, when we had been in another world just the day before. As we were driving I remembered that Bill (the guy with the flat tire) had used my cell phone to call the people at his truck, so the number would still be on my phone. I found it and dialed it and a woman answered. It was the woman who had been in the truck with Bill. When I explained who I was, and that we were wondering if they had been able to get the sick baby to a doctor, she told me that they had. The baby still had a fever but it looked like she was going to be okay. The woman told me to keep the number of her phone and if we ever needed anything to call her and they would do whatever they could to help. I told her that was okay, just knowing the baby would be okay was all we needed.
The next day (Sunday, 4 September, 2005) we arrived home late in the afternoon. We stopped at our church, where a barbecue was going on in the backyard of our pastor’s home. We were greeted with hugs, and everyone wanted to know what our trip had been like, so we tried to tell them. The thing I wanted them all to understand, and the reason I am writing this is to tell everyone that we didn’t do anything. I know that I never would have had the motivation or courage to do something like this by myself. The Lord did it all. He put the desire in our hearts to help. He gave us the resources to buy the supplies. He showed me the number to call to get the okay to go down there for Nazarene Disaster Response. He gave me the strength to continue on at Chattanooga when I was so frightened about the gas. He coordinated our being in the right place, at the right time, to ensure Bill got his tire fixed so he could get to the sick baby. He arranged for the diapers and formula to be placed in our truck. He did it all and all the glory goes to him.
I don’t fully understand why something like this had to happen to those people and this nation. It leaves me with a feeling of humbleness and sorrow, yet a feeling of hope and awe at the same time. Awe because of the power, which can turn all the great technologies of man into a pile of trash in a matter of seconds. Hope because no matter how hopeless the situation may appear, I know that our Lord is in control, and that even though the reasons may be beyond our limited understanding, if we turn to him, and trust in him, somehow it will be okay, because he loves us beyond all comprehension. A love demonstrated by his sacrifice on the cross for all of us. Even though I know that I will never be able to fully understand the reasons for why things happen the way they do, I know that I can trust the LORD, and that is enough.
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Be not wise in thine own eyes; fear the LORD and depart from evil.
It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones. Proverbs 3:5-8
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