What students watch on television about Hurricane Katrina cannot compare to the devastating sights and first-hand stories two Ball State University seniors are witnessing and hearing first-hand while volunteering in Slidell, La.
Nick Stoffle and Alex Pattee left Saturday, Sept. 3, for Louisiana where they will be staying in shelters for two weeks while aiding victims of the nation’s largest natural disaster in recent history.
“The day we saw the destruction down there and the hopeless people, we decided this was just as bad or worse than last year,” Pattee said referring to their previous experience with hurricane relief in Florida. “We felt going down and helping these people was more important than going on with our everyday lives.”
Stoffle, a criminal justice major, and Pattee, a physical education major, went to Florida to volunteer last year after hurricanes hit and also helped the Red Cross after Muncie’s ice storm, they said. Both students are certified in the Red Cross areas of disaster assessment, mass care and logistics, the counting and transporting of supplies where they need to go.
“This time we’re doing mass care, and we’ve been going to shelters and feeding the people and talking to them and taking their mind off things -— making sure everything’s clean and running right,” Stoffle said. “The people are really friendly. They need help, and they are open to it.”
Slidell, where they are staying, is located in the section of Louisiana through which the hurricane’s eye passed.
“Last year, we worked with getting supplies to people who were in need, and this year, we are working more face-to-face with people. It’s been a lot more challenging mentally,” Pattee said.
People “coming in these shelters with mud on their feet and knowing that they are still just going through all of this” has been one of many stunning images he has witnessed so far, he said.
“We’re spending the night at the shelter, so we are there 24-hours,” Stoffle said. “It’s not all hard work. We’re playing with kids and stuff.”
They said even though the victims in the shelter have suffered tremendously, most still remain optimistic about the future.
“Some of them get a little shaken up when they are talking to you. They handle it pretty well, you just have to listen,” Stoffle said. “They make it sound bad on TV, but when you come down here and actually see it ... there’s nothing. It’s one thing to see it on TV and another thing experiencing it.”
Pattee said it was “inspirational” being with evacuees who where helpful even after all they had been through.
“The stuff you see on TV is, in some places, not even describing how bad it can be. We drove through Slidell, which was one of the worst hit places, and some of those homes and apartments will never be habitable until they are bulldozed and rebuilt.”
People are trying to get back to their homes in the disaster areas, but when they find their homes in unfit condition to live in, they need to go back to a shelter.
“The biggest way to help is to go into the Red Cross and realize that these kinds of disasters are happening all the time,” Pattee said. “They are saying that they are going to need new people to come in. Some of these shelters are going to be open for two to four months so they are going to need people to come down here and relieve the people here now.”
Stoffle said he encourages other students to volunteer their time to the relief effort.
“I think that a lot of people aren’t informed about the Red Cross and how easy it is to go,” Stoffle said. “All you have to do is supply the time, and they do everything else. They need people to answer phones if you can’t go out for a long period of time.”
Stoffle and Pattee both said they left so suddenly on Saturday that they are still trying to contact their teachers to let them know they will be missing class because of their volunteering.
“Most of them are understanding, but a few of them will have problems with attendance...” Pattee said. “A lot of them said they’d be pretty lenient about it, but some of them told us our grades would be affected.”
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