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« THE Photo | Main | Jon Stewart: If you don't like the blame game it is usually because you're to blame; New Orleans music foretold the flood » September 6, 2005Displaced Rhode Island native calls from a Texas shelter; Alex Chilton OK; Volunteer: Enter data for PeopleFinder ProjectUpdated Sept. 7 with more details.
When I first knew Bob, he worked overnight at the Brown University Bookstore, unpacking books and stocking shelves. Eventually, he read the entire Eastern religions collection. He'd call every few years to keep in touch. In the spring of 2004, he called two days before I was heading to New Orleans to receive an award at a columnists convention, my first trip there ever. We had a reunion in a little bar on St. Charles Avenue. Bob met my husband for the first time, and he didn't recognize the woman with us as my daughter, the little girl he remembered well. Bob was sent to Baltimore later in the year by Lucky Dogs to start a branch there, but he became ill. He came back to New Orleans and spent some time in a V.A. hospital. Unable to work due to what turned out to be chronic heart, lung and circulatory problems, Bob's savings didn't last long. The V.A. helped find him a place to live -- in a nursing home in Harvey, La., the Maison de Ville, just across the Mississippi river from New Orleans -- and gave him a $30 monthly stipend. With Katrina approaching, the nursing home was evacuated (to Lake Charles), but Bob stayed behind. He gets around fine by himself, and had been longing for some peace and quiet, he said. He had the 80-bed home to himself during the storm, with a good supply of food and water. After the power went out, he found a room with its own generator (for a ventilator), a bed, a fan, a phone and a TV. He called an emergency number to say he was there, but he was alright and fetching him was not a priority. He watched the rescue efforts on TV. He answered phone inquiries from residents' families who didn't know where they'd been taken. When the generator's batteries died Friday, Bob walked two miles to a pickup point and, after a bus ride, ended up under a highway overpass in Gretna with thousands of other displaced people and just three portable toilets. He says only that it was disgusting there overnight, but at least there was food and water, distributed by the National Guard. When the buses arrived Saturday to evacuate them all and the throng pressed forward, Bob hung back. "I said to myself," he told me, "If Buddha can be the last one to achieve nirvana, I can be the last one on the bus." He ended up getting one of three seats in a helicopter to New Orleans International Airport, and eventually found himself on a plane to Texas. In mid-flight, the passengers were told they were going to Corpus Christi. "When we arrived at the shelter, people applauded and welcomed us like heroes," he said. "They're treating us like we were gold: Three hot meals -- not sandwiches, home-cooked meals. The amount of clothing people have donated is incredible. Social-security tables were set up today, and the food-stamp people are coming tomorrow." But he doesn't know what's next. The Salvation Army is taking over the shelter from the city today, and Texas plans to airlift some of the newcomers to other states. Corpus Christi is beautiful, he says, but with New Orleans gone, he'd like to come back to Rhode Island. I told him I'd heard Bill Clinton say that most disaster relief was for homeowners and small businesses. Lawmakers hadn't written the laws for disasters so total that people can't go back, have no where to go back to, and own little but what they could carry away on foot. Bob knew that. As we spoke, I heard an announcement over the background clatter, a female voice saying, "Michelle Bridges, you have a phone call." "Michelle found her people!" Bob said. It was clear that "finding your people" was everyone's priority at Ben Garza Gym. Bob called because he was getting depressed, he said. I told him that the outpouring of generosity was happening everywhere, here too. "Really?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "Really," I said. "Many people here want to help but don't know anyone specific they can help." I told him he is now "my" evacuee. He sounded more than relieved. He said this experience has changed him. He wants to help. He can't do physical work, but he wants to help make things better. Bob gave me his phone number -- special lines have been set up for the use of those evacuated and their families -- and I told him I'd try to help find out how he and others in the same boat could start over, now that they'd gotten safely out of the devastated areas. "Thanks, Sheila," he said. "You've given me hope here." While much of the media focus is on families, the hurricane displaced many people who are in the same fix as Bob -- alive but alone in a shelter in a strange place, the friends they call family scattered and unreachable, their way of life gone and their futures uncertain. I can help Bob get home to Rhode Island, but I can't offer him a longterm plan for a new life. If you know of charities, agencies or resettlement plans that might help Bob, and others like him, start over here in Rhode Island, please email me or use the comments link below. Musician Alex Chilton (Box Tops, Big Star) is confirmed alive and well in Houston. A musicians' message board has the details. 6:11 p.m.
They're spreading their know-how to other centers and expect at least one other Houston facility to be online soon. 4:44 p.m.
AP 2:51 p.m.
The spark is still alive. The Katrina PeopleFinder Project is creating a single database from all those scraps of emails and instant messages from people looking for loved ones in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina Got some time this Labor Day? You can help from your favorite chair, if you have a lot of patience for tedious typing and a Net connection:
These links are examples of the actual raw data you'd be working with:
And you'd be entering the information they contain into this form. Here's the PeopleFinder Volunteer info page, where you'll find all the details.
New Orleans, 2004 Drink up for New Orleans:
AP picks up on it (Cities raising glasses to help Big Easy) I think this one will spread quickly. Posted by Sheila Lennon |
Bob Fabrizio (he'll be 59 on Monday) is a native Rhode Islander who has spent most of the last 20 years working for Lucky Dogs, the venerable and distinctive New Orleans hotdog firm with hotdog-shaped carts. He's been in movies set in New Orleans, part of the local color. He hated working Bourbon Street, the drunks, the crowds, especially at Mardi Gras. Seniority eventually gave him a spot at the airport for his cart and, later, an office job that involved collecting the receipts from carts in the French Quarter at the end of the night and tending the money.
my passport photo blogging since 2002 garden blogs archived headlines  Sheila Lennon is features & interactive producer of projo.com, the Web site of The Providence (R.I.) Journal Rhode Island |
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