Publication Date: Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Our Town: The two-hurricane guy
Our Town: The two-hurricane guy
(December 14, 2005) by Don Kazak
When a man called the Palo Alto Area Red Cross chapter in September saying he had been in two hurricanes and needed assistance, "people were skeptical," caseworker Mary Sanbrook recalls.
By that time, several people had approached the local Red Cross trying to run scams, saying they were Hurricane Katrina survivors.
"Here comes the two-hurricane guy," staffers joked.
But the story was true.
Ronald Holland, 26, showed up at the Red Cross with a harrowing tale to tell.
He was living in New Orleans' Uptown district with his 77-year-old grandmother, Lilly Green, in a house she owns. His 51-year-old uncle, Gary Carter, partially disabled from a stroke earlier in the year, lived in a house two doors down, also owned by Green.
Green refused to leave before Katrina hit and her two sturdy brick homes survived with just some wind damage.
Then, the next day, the levee broke. The sturdy, single-story houses filled with six to eight feet of water.
Holland, Green and Carter lost everything. Green lost family photos dating from the 1920s, Holland said.
He said as they left town they helped rescue an elderly couple, driving them north to Baton Rouge in a truck. Holland then tried to go back to see if he could retrieve any belongings, but the city was closed off because Hurricane Rita was coming. He rode out the second hurricane in a gas station.
The three family members didn't want to go to a shelter. A relative wired some money and they made their way to the Palo Alto area because a distant relative lives in Menlo Park.
In some ways, that's the easy part of the story.
The Red Cross arranged housing through FEMA, the beleagured Federal Emergency Management Agency: two furnished apartments in the Indian Creek complex that Marriott runs in Redwood Shores.
Holland, who had worked in warehouse in New Orleans, is taking classes at Opportunities Industrialization Center West (OICW) in Menlo Park to become a construction worker. He is also taking classes to earn his high school GED.
Green is receiving Social Security checks but uses them to make payments on a loan secured by her two now-ruined homes, which didn't have flood insurance. Holland qualified for unemployment payments, but those checks stopped and he's trying to straighten that out, taking time from his OICW classes.
Holland wants to stay in the area. Most of his New Orleans friends are living in Texas or Mississippi, and only a few say they will return to their former city.
But the clock is ticking. FEMA is only paying for the Redwood Shores apartments through Jan. 7.
"We don't know where we're going to go, what we're going to do or how we'll do it," Holland said. Personable and polite, Holland, is almost overcome by emotion at times when telling his story.
They family qualified for federal Section 8 rent-assistance vouchers. But finding housing is difficult because many landlords in this high-rent region don't accept Section 8 vouchers.
"We may have to live in a trailer or a slum area," Holland said. "We're not educated but we lived in a decent neighborhood. My grandmother can't live in a slum."
Holland said it is difficult dealing with FEMA because everything takes so long.
"We ask them what we're going to do, but don't get any answers."
The Katrina refugees have to work directly with FEMA. "Mary (Sanbrook of the Red Cross) is helping but there is only so much she can do," Holland said. "The Red Cross helped us. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have any hope."
Holland's grandmother and uncle are depending on him to sort things out. He said his uncle is getting no medical treatment for his stroke and should be going through rehabilitation -- he can walk, but drags a leg. Holland takes him swimming in the Indian Creek Apartments' pool for exercise.
"What did we do in life to deserve this?" Holland asks. "We're Americans, we're taxpayers. It's like we're forgotten now."
Sanbrook said the family will move into "God knows what housing" after Jan. 7.
"It breaks my heart."
Senior Staff Writer Don Kazak can be e-mailed at dkazak@paweekly.com.
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