Few Gustav evacuees take shelter in Columbia

By Lyndsie Manusos
Sept. 5, 2008

A solid 790 miles separate New Orleans and Columbia. But when Hurricane Gustav threatened Louisiana with what some feared was a possible re-enactment of Hurricane Katrina, the distance seemed to lessen in a matter of days as volunteers and concerned MU students from the Gulf States bridged the gap between the two cities.

Erin Stevenson is a sophomore from Zachary, La., a town about an hour from New Orleans. As news coverage of Gustav increased, so did her worries and the feeling of helplessness.

"With Katrina, I was there and they gave us a week off of school and we helped," Stevenson said. "This time it's completely different because I can't do anything."

Phone calls and text messaging were the only forms of communication between her parents, sister and grandmothers. During Gustav, communication only came in short spurts. Most of the calls were asking Stevenson to relay weather reports after power outages hit most of Louisiana, temporarily halting access to television news and the Internet.

Junior Mike Kelly has family in Mandeville, La. Kelly said his family evacuated to Birmingham, Ala., as Gustav's threat increased. Kelly's father, Jim, is the CEO of Catholic Charities and president and CEO of Providence Community Housing, a non-profit organization that started after Hurricane Katrina. Both organizations played major roles in the relief for both Katrina and Gustav.

"It was difficult not being the surrogate head of the house because that was the role I played in Katrina," Kelly said.

Kelly's father was busy in New Orleans during Gustav and helped prepare for the worst-case scenario of a Katrina re-enactment.

"Sunday morning my dad was legitimately concerned that Gustav was going to be worse than Katrina," Kelly said.

With even the idea of such a possibility looming, relief effort volunteers felt the crunch.

The Mid-Missouri Chapter of the American Red Cross was given a large estimated number of evacuees to prepare for. It was expected that some 3,000 Federal Emergency Management Agency evacuees were to take refuge in Missouri alone, with 120 of those evacuees due to stay in Columbia.

Karen Viebrock, the local Red Cross emergency services director, came back from her vacation in order to set up a shelter at Calvary Baptist Church in Columbia for evacuees.

"We received a call stating that we were no longer going to be receiving 120 evacuees. They were taken elsewhere," Viebrock said.

In spite of the change of plans, Viebrock decided to continue to set up in case there were any self-evacuees. On Monday, the Red Cross received calls that evacuees needed a place to stay and the shelter was actively opened.

For two days, 13 evacuees took shelter in the building provided by Calvary Baptist Church. By Wednesday, the shelter was empty. But in no way is the shelter closing down - it will remain on standby in case of additional storms and local disasters.

After New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin prematurely deemed Gustav "the mother of all storms," the fear of a repeat Katrina grew. But after the storm hit, many claimed Gustav was overestimated. But some, like Stevenson, say it's better to be safe than sorry.

"This time there was over-preparation but that's in no way a bad thing," she said.

Kelly agreed with that assessment.

"I equate it with the boy who cried wolf," he said. "After Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast region, everyone went into panic mode with Hurricane Gustav."

But Stevenson and Kelly can breathe a little easier for the time being.

"The worst of it is over now," Stevenson said.

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Few Gustav evacuees take shelter in Columbia

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