—Autumnal Equinox, 2005
Friday, September 23, 2005
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
(MORE) DISASTER DISPATCHES
(Notes from C.B., CNN Producer)
September 20, 2005
—New Orleans, LA
The city, as I’ve observed it, in the past few days:
Fewer animals and people roam the streets of New Orleans. There remain some holdouts from several species. Residents of Algiers seem eager to return home, however Mother Nature may have something to say about that.
The smell of raw sewage has abated, somewhat. The countless flies and mosquitoes have been reduced by aerial spraying. You walk and drive through certain sections and the air almost seems clean, particularly in Algiers. In Jefferson Parish, businesses are opening. Buds Broiler on Clearview, Comeaux appliances, a Wal-Mart in Kenner and other places are very real signs of hope. Water has receded to near the Lake. In these areas that are coming back to life refrigerators, carpeting, insulation and other refuse is strewn about the sidewalks for a garbage pick up which, eventually will come — no one knows when. To that end, garbage is accruing throughout the city.
Cleanup has begun and streets are looking better each day, but the bagged garbage goes nowhere, it just sits and rots further. Stop signs are up at intersections downtown — where streetlights once functioned. Lawless driving conditions scare me more than the crime or disease “epidemics” ever did.
Rita looms large on the horizon and is, at least the ostensibly, reason that Nagin has ceased repopulation of select, largely dry neighborhoods. If the storm hits St. Tammany, as one model projects, the catastrophic flooding and levee breaks will be a potential knockout blow to the region and to New Orleans, in particular. Officials told me today that they are planning to use Behrman Recreation Center on the West Bank and the Convention Center on the East Bank to evacuate the remaining residents of Orleans Parish. Currently, the rec center is populated with contractors who are camping out and doing tree and debris removal. All of these folks would have to go.
On a personal note, I saw my own brother today, TWICE! I have made plans to leave the region on Saturday for some r&r in L.A.. That said, if it looks like Rita is headed our way, I know myself well enough to believe that I won’t be able to make myself go. Sneaky Pete [my boss] and I may have to hunker down in a bunker and bicker with each other through the storm, and yes, I do have a pack of cards.
Go Saints!
Sunday, September 18, 2005
TAKING MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS
“Thomas, Tracy and Jeremy saved my life,” Latosha Ross said to the crowd gathered at NoHo Modern Furniture in North Hollywood, last Friday night. The more than 100 guests milling around the store, opened three years ago by Thomas Hayes and Jeremy Petty, were there to attend a benefit for Ross and her daughter, Keairria Shorter, who were adopted by NoHo Modern’s owners in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Like many, Hayes and his wife Tracy, along with Petty, had been sickened by the televised scenes of human devastation wrought by the nation’s largest natural disaster in a century. They wanted to help, yet, “we didn’t feel that good about just giving money to an anonymous entity,” Petty explained. “People like to feel like they’re doing something directly.”
“My friend Jill, was traveling to Alabama to do hurricane relief work,” Hayes related. “I asked her to look out for a family we could help. I wanted to send a check to someone specifically.” Jill found Ross and her daughter. Residents of Gulf Port, MI, the two had been living on the roof of their apartment building, with a dozen other survivors, for six days. Subsisting on scant rations of Vienna sausages and storm water doused with bleach, they were sick, tired and losing hope by the time they were discovered.
“Jill called to tell me about this family and asked me if I’d like to take them in,” Hayes recalls. This was a much larger commitment than merely mailing a check. Yet, without hesitation, plane tickets were purchased, and a room in Hayes’ Valley Village home was hastily painted and furnished to accommodate the survivors.
Ross and Shorter arrived on September 6, to begin the process of building a new life in Los Angeles. With help from NoHo Modern’s supporters, abundant donations were collected to clothe the two, and Keairria, 8, was immediately enrolled in Colfax Avenue Elementary School. However, persistent bouts of gastrointestinal illness caused her to miss much of her first two weeks of third grade. After several trips to emergency clinics, a pediatrician was found who would treat Keairria gratis. This same doctor also convinced Huntington Medical Center in Pasadena to donate their services — where it was finally determined that the girl was suffering from salmonella poisoning. By the night of the reception, Keairria was on the mend and enjoying the festivities.
Though Ross and Shorter have been saved from their immediate devastation, there is much more to do to get their lives on track. Now that her daughter is out of danger, Ross, who had worked as a sous chef in a Gulf Port casino, has begun looking for a job. Then there is the matter of finding a permanent home. The $5,000 collected at the fundraiser, and another $5000 in cash and gift cards donated previously, will help with this — as will the offers of play dates, jobs leads and other assistance that have come from NoHo Modern’s extended group of friends.
There is much they will need to learn outside of the realm of basic survival skills to make the transition from living in the South to living in California. The West Coast is a vastly different place than the one from which they came, and the culture shock that has begun to set in has been as surprising to Hayes and Petty as it has to Ross and Shorter.
As if seeing her first Whole Foods store wasn’t startling enough, by way of example, Hayes related that he had to “sit Latosha down and explain to her that she couldn’t just yell at her kid in public in California. I told her that it was okay to do that in the South, but here you would get reported and have your kid taken away from you.”
Petty added that they don’t want to just be the two white guys who keep telling her what to do with her child, her money or her life. “Right now she probably thinks of us as angels of mercy. But, there will come a point when she’s going to want to do what she wants to do.” He is determined to make sure that when that time comes, she will have the tools to take care of herself. “I don’t want her to blow the money on cigarettes, alcohol and things like rental furniture,” he said. “I don’t want her paying all those poverty taxes. In fact, our accountant has offered to help her with her finances.”
What began as a quest to write a check for a needy family has turned into a long-term relationship. While, it may be a long time before Ross becomes comfortable in her new Southern California home, Hayes and Petty plan to continue to help until she is.
“I don’t intend to drop off. I intend to be involved in their lives for a long time,” said Petty. “They say you can give someone a fish, or you can teach them to fish and they’ll be able to take care of themselves. That’s what we are trying to do.”
Read more about the family on Petty’s blog: http://katrinahurricanelosangeles.blogspot.com/ or contact them directly at NoHo Modern, 11225 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601; 818-505-1297.
“Thomas, Tracy and Jeremy saved my life,” Latosha Ross said to the crowd gathered at NoHo Modern Furniture in North Hollywood, last Friday night. The more than 100 guests milling around the store, opened three years ago by Thomas Hayes and Jeremy Petty, were there to attend a benefit for Ross and her daughter, Keairria Shorter, who were adopted by NoHo Modern’s owners in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Like many, Hayes and his wife Tracy, along with Petty, had been sickened by the televised scenes of human devastation wrought by the nation’s largest natural disaster in a century. They wanted to help, yet, “we didn’t feel that good about just giving money to an anonymous entity,” Petty explained. “People like to feel like they’re doing something directly.”
“My friend Jill, was traveling to Alabama to do hurricane relief work,” Hayes related. “I asked her to look out for a family we could help. I wanted to send a check to someone specifically.” Jill found Ross and her daughter. Residents of Gulf Port, MI, the two had been living on the roof of their apartment building, with a dozen other survivors, for six days. Subsisting on scant rations of Vienna sausages and storm water doused with bleach, they were sick, tired and losing hope by the time they were discovered.
“Jill called to tell me about this family and asked me if I’d like to take them in,” Hayes recalls. This was a much larger commitment than merely mailing a check. Yet, without hesitation, plane tickets were purchased, and a room in Hayes’ Valley Village home was hastily painted and furnished to accommodate the survivors.
Ross and Shorter arrived on September 6, to begin the process of building a new life in Los Angeles. With help from NoHo Modern’s supporters, abundant donations were collected to clothe the two, and Keairria, 8, was immediately enrolled in Colfax Avenue Elementary School. However, persistent bouts of gastrointestinal illness caused her to miss much of her first two weeks of third grade. After several trips to emergency clinics, a pediatrician was found who would treat Keairria gratis. This same doctor also convinced Huntington Medical Center in Pasadena to donate their services — where it was finally determined that the girl was suffering from salmonella poisoning. By the night of the reception, Keairria was on the mend and enjoying the festivities.
Though Ross and Shorter have been saved from their immediate devastation, there is much more to do to get their lives on track. Now that her daughter is out of danger, Ross, who had worked as a sous chef in a Gulf Port casino, has begun looking for a job. Then there is the matter of finding a permanent home. The $5,000 collected at the fundraiser, and another $5000 in cash and gift cards donated previously, will help with this — as will the offers of play dates, jobs leads and other assistance that have come from NoHo Modern’s extended group of friends.
There is much they will need to learn outside of the realm of basic survival skills to make the transition from living in the South to living in California. The West Coast is a vastly different place than the one from which they came, and the culture shock that has begun to set in has been as surprising to Hayes and Petty as it has to Ross and Shorter.
As if seeing her first Whole Foods store wasn’t startling enough, by way of example, Hayes related that he had to “sit Latosha down and explain to her that she couldn’t just yell at her kid in public in California. I told her that it was okay to do that in the South, but here you would get reported and have your kid taken away from you.”
Petty added that they don’t want to just be the two white guys who keep telling her what to do with her child, her money or her life. “Right now she probably thinks of us as angels of mercy. But, there will come a point when she’s going to want to do what she wants to do.” He is determined to make sure that when that time comes, she will have the tools to take care of herself. “I don’t want her to blow the money on cigarettes, alcohol and things like rental furniture,” he said. “I don’t want her paying all those poverty taxes. In fact, our accountant has offered to help her with her finances.”
What began as a quest to write a check for a needy family has turned into a long-term relationship. While, it may be a long time before Ross becomes comfortable in her new Southern California home, Hayes and Petty plan to continue to help until she is.
“I don’t intend to drop off. I intend to be involved in their lives for a long time,” said Petty. “They say you can give someone a fish, or you can teach them to fish and they’ll be able to take care of themselves. That’s what we are trying to do.”
Read more about the family on Petty’s blog: http://katrinahurricanelosangeles.blogspot.com/ or contact them directly at NoHo Modern, 11225 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601; 818-505-1297.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)