September 09, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Shelter from the storm

by Jennifer Aquino, Bill D'Agostino, Jocelyn Dong and Alexandria Rocha

It's been a long journey for 17-year-old Daniel Smolkin and his family.

To be precise -- 2,252 miles. The Smolkins, recently dislocated from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, are now seeking shelter with a relative in Palo Alto and hoping to move on with their lives in a state far from the place they called home their entire lives.

"It's a big change," said Daniel, who started his junior year at Gunn High School this week.

More than 30 evacuees are living in the county and receiving services from the Red Cross, according to Palo Alto Mayor Jim Burch. Though thousands of miles from the tragedy, schools and families here have opened their doors to help those affected by one of the biggest tragedies in our country's history.

Nancy Ng is one of more than 6,000 people -- from coast to coast, from Seattle, Wash. to Kennebunk, Maine -- who have offered victims a place to stay on the Web site Craigslist. Five of those offers came from Palo Alto.

"We know that this is a long way away and very different from New Orleans but you are welcome to share our home with us," one anonymous person from Palo Alto noted.

Ng's offer noted there were "good schools." She said she was used to having a lively home, having adopted nine children with her husband, but had yet to hear from anyone as of Wednesday.

Local officials mobilize

On Wednesday night, San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzalez, Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss, and Lorraine Zippiroli of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross met with approximately 40 mayors, vice mayors and the staff of cities in Santa Clara County to share their plan.

Chief among them, San Jose has been preparing to take 100 evacuees, sheltering them for the short term in San Jose State University's Spartan Village. Mental health and other services would be offered, in conjunction with the county and nonprofit organizations. Gonzalez will ask the San Jose City Council for $500,000 to support the recovery center, which amounts to about 50 cents per San Jose resident.

Those plans are temporarily on hold at the request of FEMA, whose spokesperson this week indicated that evacuees have been reluctant to move so far from home.

If and when those plans do go forward, however, Palo Alto might be able to contribute about $30,000 to help, based on an equivalent per capita, Burch said.

District officials sprung into action this week when enrollment inquiries from relatives and friends, preparing to house evacuees here, started coming into the district's Churchill Avenue office, said Marie Scigliano, director of central attendance. So far the district hasn't enrolled anyone besides Daniel, but Scigliano said a handful of local relatives of refugees have picked up enrollment packages for students on the way.

"This is an awful thing for a child to go through, not only to lose their homes but to all of a sudden be thrust into a new state with unfamiliar surroundings," said district Superintendent Mary Frances Callan. "Our goal is to make sure this is as easy as possible for them."

The students fleeing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are without school records, and most importantly, their immunization documents. But under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Act, students who are homeless -- including those made homeless by natural disaster -- do not need to provide proof of residency, immunization records, school records or legal guardianship papers to enroll and attend schools.

Callan said the Santa Clara County Health Department is working with all of the local schools receiving homeless students to track down medical records. The local district is also supplying these families with a list of local clinics if the vaccinations are needed, and giving them two months to turn in the necessary records.

Callan also said Scigliano is making every effort to keep the students who are siblings close in age together. She said the students have already experienced enough trauma and shouldn't have to be separated.

"These children need a place to go, a home and some stability. I think it's wonderful their families are helping them," Callan said.

Family support

Daniel's dad, Stuart Smolkin, fought off tears Tuesday after his son's required tuberculosis test came through negative and district officials gave them the green light.

"There is nothing I can do about my house. Our energy was on getting Daniel in school. (The district) greatly streamlined the process," said Stuart, sitting in his sister Shelley Hebert's south Palo Alto home.

Daniel said the Gunn campus looks like a different world.

"My school at home is a three-story cinder block. Here you have to walk outside to go to classes; it's twice the size of my school," he said. "There is a strict dress code at home, along with IDs -- we have to wear IDs that say our name and have a photo."

Daniel's campus back home, Benjamin Franklin High School, is attached to the University of New Orleans and sits on the city's lakefront. The students were seven days into the school year when Katrina flooded the campus.

Stuart, his parents, Bill and Molly Smolkin, and Daniel have been here about one and a half weeks. Stuart's wife, Jeanne, who was in New York when her family evacuated, arrived in Palo Alto Wednesday. The couple's older son, David, a college student in Jackson, Miss., will soon join them.

Stuart describes fleeing New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina with his teenaged son and elderly parents two weeks ago with one word -- surreal.

"I bought four life preservers and had the tools to bust us out of the attic if it came to that," Stuart said. "Can you imagine it? You think you've weathered it, and then you're in a house with the water rising. You never expect that to happen, but you don't expect your house to flood either."

The Herberts offered their home upon learning of the family's dire situation. The Herbert's two sons are away, so two rooms were available.

Stuart decided to gather his family and flee New Orleans after learning the mayor had plans to call for a mandatory evacuation. But it wasn't an easy decision.

"We get hurricanes all the time and people tend to evacuate too early and end up in the path of the storm," he said. "We have never evacuated New Orleans."

This time, Stuart decided it was too risky to stay. The four left their hometown in Bill's old Lincoln Continental with a half tank of gas about 24 hours before the hurricane hit.

About half way to Houston, Texas, police stopped them in their tracks. No one else was allowed to evacuate to Houston. The family turned north toward the small town of Alexandria, La., about 215 miles from New Orleans, where they got a hotel room for three nights. It was there they received the bad news.

"They learned the awful truth that they wouldn't be camped out just waiting to go home," said Daniel's uncle, John.

While Stuart has little hope for the recovery of his home, he is even more devastated by the federal government's slow relief efforts.

"I share the outrage. I look at the people that were suffering and they're mostly poor people who couldn't get in a car and leave. The stories about the lack of responsiveness are shameful," he said.

"You see on TV helicopters dropping huge sandbags and you think, if they can do that with sand, why could they not do it with food and water?"

The Smolkins said the support since fleeing New Orleans has been tremendous.

Earlier this week, Bill Smolkin filled a prescription at the Walgreens on El Camino Real. Although his bill was about $400, the clerk gave him the prescriptions for free. Walgreens has launched a national program to help victims displaced by Hurricane Katrina fill their prescriptions free of charge.

"That is the ultimate. Is there hospitality? Is there feeling? Yes," said Bill. "We were flustered by it."

A new life

The Pollards are likewise grateful for the hospitality here. Recent transplants to New Orleans from Palo Alto, the couple and their two children have returned and are trying to put a new life together in the hurricane's wake.

"It's a little overwhelming; it's uncertain," Emily Pollard, a former Weekly employee, said of their sudden displacement, speaking from the Palo Alto home of her parents-in-law.

Two months ago, Pollard, her husband and two children packed up their belongings and moved to the Big Easy for her husband's work. They fled New Orleans the Saturday before Katrina hit, taking to the packed -- but still manageable -- highways. After staying with friends who lived four hours away, Emily Pollard and the children flew to the Bay Area on Tuesday; her husband joined them the next day. The Pollards had been renting a home in the Upland area of the city, which is next to the Garden District. It's a neighborhood of large, older homes, and the Pollards had found a comfortable place they shared with the landlords.

To this day, they haven't heard any word on how their house or neighborhood has survived.

"That's the weird part right now. We don't know," Pollard said. No one's been allowed to go into the main part of New Orleans yet. In fact, the mayor called on police this week to evacuate the city's remaining residents.

Pollard has been in touch with her landlords, who ended up in Houston, but is unclear whether their lease is still in effect.

Since arriving, the family has been working diligently to chart out a future.

The company Pollard's husband worked for has relocated to Baton Rouge, La., one of the main cities to which people have been fleeing in the aftermath. To follow his job, the Pollards will be moving there as well. This weekend, they worked with a real estate agent to find a home. Given the long-term displacement of thousands of people, however, all the rentals in the city have already been taken, Pollard said.

Out of 40 for-sale properties their agent found, only one was still available. The Pollards bought it.

"People are snapping up properties sight unseen," Pollard said of the hurricane-spawned housing frenzy.

Meanwhile, she's successfully found a place for her daughter in a Louisiana preschool as well.

While the family is here, they're keeping tabs on New Orleans, waiting for the time when they can return to their abandoned home get some belongings, including their wedding album and baby books.

Despite the abrupt shift in their lives, the Pollards have been thankful to spend time with family in the Palo Alto area. Their daughter has been welcomed back to the preschool she had been attending here, until the family can move to Baton Rouge in October.

"We feel like we're going to be OK," Pollard said.

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