Katrina's wake

Hurricane Katrina was a life-altering force. Its waters rose up tens of feet in New Orleans. Its surge breached levees, wrecked buildings and ended lives. It stranded residents all over the country, some of them nearly 400 miles away in a city known as Homewood.  

Ten years have passed since Aug. 29, 2005, but for people in the wake of the storm, the weeks and months and years of transition that followed are still vivid. Here, we share the stories of some of those who came to Homewood.  

On the front lines

Beverly Vappie, 11, and her mom, Jean, came up to Birmingham on Aug. 28, 2005, to be near an aunt who lived in Birmingham. However, her dad, Russell, a police lieutenant, remained in New Orleans to report for work. They wouldn’t speak to him until two and a half weeks later.

When Katrina hit New Orleans the next day, Russell assisted with rescue efforts in the seventh police district until the waters rose high enough to strand him and nearly 20 other officers at Pendleton Memorial Methodist Hospital.

“Inside everyone was staring out the window like they were in a state of shock,” he said. “You could see the water rising and it nearing the top of the stop sign. We all ran toward the elevator, but it wasn’t working so we ran to the stairwell. Below us, we saw water whirling around up the stairwell.”

On the sixth floor, the officers organized themselves and helped care for the nearly 750 patients. 

“You could only deal with what was in front of you,” he said. “None of us knew how to think about it; no one realized the magnitude of what we had experienced.”

Eventually, helicopters airlifted out the patients and later the officers. 

Russell continued to work in New Orleans and travel to Birmingham on weekends until that December, when Jean was diagnosed with breast cancer. Back in Birmingham, the Vappies had settled in an apartment in Homewood near Russell’s sister-in-law and her husband. Beverly would go on to become a Star Spangled Girl and graduate from Homewood High School. 

 “The people were great,” Russell said. “Birmingham was really lifesaving. The school system was an overwhelmingly good environment for our daughter. She thrived, and I don’t think she had any emotional scars from Katrina.”

After Beverly went on to Spelman College in 2012, Russell and Jean, who is in remission, moved back to  New Orleans into their original — yet freshly repaired — home.

Finding a new home

As a counselor at Homewood High School, Kenya Bledsoe worked with several New Orleans families to get them settled in Homewood in the fall of 2005.

The students came with no records, and there were no schools from the past to call. 

“Typically when a student comes in we assess their records and look at a transcript to place them accordingly to what they have had,” Bledsoe said. “We had to be creative and resourceful with placement tests and what they had.”

But the school’s relationship was about more than class schedules. They ensured they had lunch to eat and school supplies to use. The school’s support was largely emotional as well, providing individual and group counseling to help with the transition.

“They were uprooted and somewhat traumatized,” Bledsoe said. “We welcomed them, reassuring them that we were going to educate them and support their emotional needs as best as we could.”

The school’s Peer Helpers collected money to help them with basic necessities, and the counselors directed them to different agencies to help them with clothes and other supplies. 

“That’s the beauty of being here in Homewood,” Bledsoe said. “If we put the call out to help, [the reaction] was above and beyond everything we had seen, even if it was a year later. I have never seen us come together like this.”

Homewood-based Family Guidance Center was one of the agencies where Homewood families received assistance. Regina Allison worked with grant money to assist 20 families though the organization. 

They paid water bills, bought school clothes on tax-free weekend and helped them get birth certificates (many had fled without them) so children could register for school.

“We gave them a security blanket,” Allison said. “We wanted families to have the services they needed.”

To stay or go

Eventually some families Bledsoe and Allison knew moved back to New Orleans, while others became so integrated in the school system that teachers and students forgot they had transferred in. 

“Once the kids got settled, they basically decided it would be better if they stayed here,” Allison said. “And it was so painful for them to go home. Six to eight months later it still looked like ground zero. Just driving over that bridge, they started having terrible thoughts.”

Among those who stayed were Dawnelle Ernest and her five kids. After living in New Orleans for 33 years, she left Aug. 28 for what she thought would be a weekend away while the hurricane hit. Now she’s been here 10 years.

She and her children moved into a Super 8 on Vulcan Road and then an apartment in Homewood. At the time, Anesia was 15, Arielle 13, Arthur 12, future track star Aaron 11 and Aronique — who graduated this year — 8. 

“It was really rough,” she said. “I had no idea what my next move was. [Later] we settled into our home and it got much better, but in the beginning it was a rough road.”

Many families had lived in New Orleans for generations and lived in homes their grandparents bought. Above all, the Ernests and others were looking to put down roots again. They wanted whatever normal life looks like.

“Each had a different story to tell, but the common thread was they all wanted a sense of home,” Allison said. “They wanted a place where they could say, ‘This is my little slice of earth.’”