Hurricane Katrina and the Aftermath
August-September 2005
The Soder family's personal experiences as
told by Jon Soder
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This story is about the personal experiences of our family during and after hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina struck the gulf coast on August 28-29, 2005. Several of my family members resided in Biloxi, Mississippi. The are my mother (Edith Soder), my sister (Sherry Shappell), my niece (Lori Richter, her husband Mike and their four children. All were affected tragically by this hurricane, but they are all alive and well as of today (October 10, 2005). My brother Alan, his wife Gerry, my daughter (Sharon Barker) and her husband (Jai) and my wife Hasmin all played a role in assisting our relatives with relief and resettlement. We were also fortunate enough to have prayers, financial assistance, and support from many relatives, friends, and even strangers through this ordeal. My brother and I wish to extend our deepest heartfelt thanks to all those who helped us and are continuing to help us.
The initial evacuation: Mom, Sherry, and Lori's family evacuated east to Niceville, Florida before the storm hit. Getting the evacuation going was a bit of a challenge at first. Mom and Sherry had decided to stay in Biloxi and ride the storm out partly because of too many previous evacuations when no damage was done and partly because of the notion that they survived Camille, so this should be OK. After a bit of long-distance arm twisting Mom and Sherry did agree to evacuate. They all went together to a Holiday Inn in Niceville, Florida. The trip was a long ordeal because they got stuck in the evacuation rush and because they went East instead of North which meant they were passing though other areas that were also evacuating. The hotel rooms were very expensive because rooms were scarce (demand driven by evacuees and by rescue crews pre-positioning themselves. A kind man heard of their plight with the expensive motel and offered to let them use an old FEMA trailer that he had purchased. This was a small trailer for seven people to live in, but the price was right.
What the storm did to their homes: The storm devastated the entire Biloxi area as you all know by now. Mom lived in a senior high rise apartment near the beach. Her 13-story concrete building had the entire first floor ripped out and the building was condemned. Sherry's apartment survived OK enough to rescue some belongings. Lori's house was completely flooded and nothing was salvageable because of the immediate onset of black mold and other damage.
Preparing for the rescue trip: After a few phone calls, Alan and I determined that Mom and Sherry wanted to move back to Minnesota as soon as possible and permanently. They had no desire to go back to Biloxi to start life over in that mess. Lori's family had not decided yet what to do and were hoping that FEMA would come through with reasonable solution for them. I got a list of emergency supplies from Lori and I mailed that to them as soon as I could round them up. At first Alan and I were planning to go down to Florida together to bring Mom and Sherry to Minnesota, but Alan was not able to get off work. Since I was already retired, I became the elected chauffeur for the rescue mission. While I went on the rescue trip, Alan worked on things from home such as finding out where all the Katrina resources were here and keeping family and friends updated daily with news of what was going on with the family during this rough period. Our main plan was for me to travel to Florida with a trailer load of supplies for Lori's family and then bring Mom and Sherry back with me with whatever we could salvage from their apartments. It took about a week to put all the pieces together which ended up being very hard on those who were stuck in the small trailer in Florida. Sharon and Jai own a retail store and donated lots of stuff for Lori's family and also offered free shopping sprees for Mom and Sherry when they returned to Minnesota. Sharon worked two whole days finding the right sizes etc. for Lori's family. She also had it all sorted and labeled. Here's a few photos of getting ready for the trip. I also had to figure out a way to safely haul 60 gallons of gasoline because at the time I left, most gas stations in their area had no gas.
On the Road to Florida: Here's my proof that I actually drove that old 200,000 mile car and rented trailer to Florida. I left on September 10th and Arrived late on September 11th.
Arrival in Florida: Made it all the way with no problems, but then problems cropped up while I was in Florida. The first photo here shows how small the trailer is that all seven people were living in. I did have a hotel room, so I took Mom over to the hotel room to give them a little extra space in the trailer. The next day when we were going to unload the trailer, the alternator went out on the car. We got it fixed and then unloaded the trailer later that day.
Our trip back into the Biloxi area: We made plans to go to Biloxi to see what we could recover. Mike (Lori's husband) said he knew how to get us in there even though the area was still off limits. On the day we planned to go, we were going to use two cars (Lori's and mine with the trailer). We wanted to leave real early so we could get in and out before curfew. As soon as we headed out, the transmission began acting up on my car. We limped our way back to the dealership while Lori went to pick up some papers. Lori then picked up Mike at the dealership and headed for Biloxi with Lori. The dealership was very nice and they took our car in right away. They had to order a transmission from Atlanta which would take overnight. In the meantime they arranged for a rental cargo van for us to go to Biloxi and catch up with Lori. The van only had 107 miles on it and I put a dent in it after driving only 15 minutes. A car ran over a piece of dead truck tire and threw it up at the hood and window. I was able to repair the dent enough to be not so noticeable myself before turning in the van and it worked. Saw a tremendous amount of destruction along the way. While in Biloxi, we had to use face masks in some places and hand sanitizer every time we touched something. It was a horrible sight to see first hand.
Maps and aerial photos of Biloxi area: The following series of photo and maps show the area where Mom, Sherry, and Lori's family lived in the Biloxi area. The map shows where everyone lived and other key landmarks. The aerial photos show some before and after photos of the same area and are captioned to explain what they are about. The aerial photos are from NASA satellite photos and captions by Jon Soder.
Photos of the damage to Mom's apartment building (the Santa Maria Del Mar) and surrounding area: My mother lived in a 13-story senior high rise in Biloxi, MS. The building was on the north side of the US 90 highway that runs east and west along the coast. This building was right in the middle of the "casino row" that was shown on the news a lot. This was a strong building with poured reinforced concrete walls. The entire first floor was destroyed by the storm surge. Even the concrete walls were gone. The first floor was completely see through and looked like a 13 story building on stilts. I took several photos here on the day we traveled to Biloxi to see if we could salvage a few things. I was not able to get photos of Lori's house or Sherry's apartment on this trip because we were running out of daylight and bumping up on curfew time.
We were able to rescue some items from both Mom's apartment and Sherry's apartment, but nothing from Lori's. Mike made a heroic effort at Mom's apartment by climbing up some broken pipes to a broken window in a second floor apartment (there were no stairs left to get to the second floor). He then worked his way up to the eighth floor and to Mom's apartment (a dark and treacherous trip). He used a cell phone to communicate with Mom on what was most important and where it was located. He then brought everything down to the second floor and lowered it to us by means of a makeshift rope made out of extension cords. We were really amazed that he could do that because he was already suffering from a serious spinal injury in his neck. We barely got out of town before the curfew and it was after 10 PM by the time we got back to Florida.
Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, MS: Keesler Air Force base occupies the entire center of Biloxi, essentially dividing Biloxi in two. It is a large base which is home to the planes that fly into the hurricanes and also houses many technical schools. These photos were taken on Keesler Air Force Base during and after the Katrina hurricane. I am not sure who took the photos. They appear to have been taken with a cell phone camera which is why the quality is not great. They are good enough to see how powerful the hurricane and storm surge was. Keesler is consider to be on higher ground than most of Biloxi.
The return to Minnesota: The repairs to the transmission led to a couple of days delay in the planned return to Minnesota. Mom was a bit upset at first because she was blaming herself for getting me into this mess and she was worried what would happen when I ran out of medicines. I convinced her that I would be fine and I called my doctor at the Minneapolis VA hospital and the doctor agreed that I would be OK even if I ran out for a few days. As it turns out, we made it back to Minnesota on the last day before running out of medicines. During the morning of our last day in Florida, I fixed the dent on the van. I first used bug and tar remover to take the tire marks off the hood and windshield. Then I used a paintless dent remover gadget to pull the dent out. It took about a half hour of various pulls, but I eventually got it fairly smooth. Then I used some scratch remover compound to rub out the scratched part. After all of this, the evidence of the dent was still obvious, especially in bright sunlight. I took the van to a gas station and wash the windows slopping as much as I could on the hood. I also dipped the sponge in the dirty bug water and dribble it on the hood so that the dented area was covered really good with bugs. This made the dent unnoticeable unless one knew it was there.
Then we checked out of the motel and went to lunch and then on to the dealership where we transferred the stuff in the van into our rental trailer. Then we went to return the van. The return of the van went OK, did not get charged for the dent. The rental place then gave us a ride back to the dealership where we waited for the car to be finished. In the meantime, Mike brought Sherry to the dealership so that we would not have to make another long trip to pick her up before getting on the road. The car was fixed by about 2:00 PM on Thursday, September 15th and we began driving North. We stayed overnight just north of Montgomery, Alabama. The next day we traveled as far as Bloomington, Illinois. Then on Saturday, we drove the rest of the way to Minnesota arriving home about 5:30 PM. The car ran fine the whole trip.
As it turned out, I did not need to use the 60 gallons of gas I brought with me, so I left it in Florida for Lori and Mike to use. Oh, did I mention that all three of the sojourners are diabetics?
Resettlement: Now that we are back in Minnesota is where the real work began. First, must tell you that Lori and Mike bought a large pickup truck and a bigger trailer. They are moving to Laughlin Nevada soon. They both have jobs lined up in Laughlin at a casino there.
While I was playing chauffeur to and from Florida, Alan was working here in Minnesota. By the time we got to Minnesota, Alan already had researched and found most of the resources we needed to get Mom and Sherry resettled here in Minnesota. Mom and Sherry stayed at my house until they each got apartments of their own. We arrived on Saturday and the first order of the day was to take Sherry to the emergency room at Regions hospital on Sunday because of some pretty severe infections on her legs. The hospital treated her and gave her some antibiotics and other medicines and scheduled a follow-up appointment which then led to appointments with a wound care specialist.
Alan had already located the State of Minnesota Katrina relief center. Minnesota had set up a temporary relief center where evacuees could do "one stop shopping" for services and help. To expedite the process, on Monday Alan took mom and I took Sherry through the system (worked better because they each had different needs. Compared to Mississippi, Minnesota really had their act together on this including food and drinks served throughout the day to anyone that wanted it. It worked like an assembly line. The first thing was a welcome and personal interview with a services coordinator. The coordinator used a form to determine which people you would see during the day. The services that were provided in this one-stop place were FEMA, Social Security Admin, Social Services for several counties, Medical Assistance, Red Cross, Housing Assistance, Counselling, Salvation Army, and at the end of the line an "Exit Interview" to make sure that all of your needs were met. After the exit interview, they you could go through the "store" and pick up clothing and other items (all free of course). It was an all day process to go through, but when we were done, we were really done. We left and went to lunch and then came back to finish up because the diabetics needed to eat on a schedule.
Alan then worked on finding housing for Mom and I help Sherry with finding her housing. I spent the next week or so taking mom and Sherry various places to complete what we started at the relief center. There were a lot of things that required paperwork follow-up.
Both mom and Sherry now have apartments of their own and are getting settled into the new environment meeting people and getting to know their way around town and what services are available to them.
Again, many thanks to all the relatives, friends and strangers who made it possible for us to get through this event and have a positive story to tell. We are so fortunate.
AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER!!!