Fayette native recounts Katrina’s devastation
While most people in southwestern Pennsylvania followed the devastation of Hurricane Katrina from the comfort of their living rooms, watching the coverage on television and reading the local newspaper, a law student from Fayette County experienced the storm’s aftermath firsthand. Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast when it made landfall one year ago today.
Franklin Swaney of Lemont Furnace, a 1997 graduate of Laurel Highlands School District and University of Pittsburgh law student, traveled to Biloxi, Miss., for a week in March to perform relief work of a different nature than most saw on television. He traveled with an organization called the Student Hurricane Network. The organization includes law students from across the country that travel to hurricane-ravaged regions to help residents with legal issues, such as filing paperwork with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and evictions from hurricane-damaged housing projects.
Looking back on his experience, Swaney said last week that he chose to travel to Biloxi rather than New Orleans because many of his fellow law students were going to New Orleans and he wanted to do his part to help somewhere where the resources weren’t as plentiful.
“There were 14 people in New Orleans,” Swaney said. “And there was me in Biloxi. I had been there before, so I was a little familiar with the area.”
Swaney said the devastation was comparable to a nuclear blast.
“You think of a hurricane causing some water and wind damage,” he said. “But there were towns completely wiped out. There was nothing there. And this was in March, six months after Katrina hit.”
He did travel to New Orleans for a day, a two and a half hour drive, and that’s when it hit him just how widespread the damage was.
“I traveled close to 170 miles and you could see just how much damage Katrina did,” he said. “It wasn’t just a small portion of coast line, it was hundreds and hundreds of miles of destruction. Some of the areas in New Orleans still didn’t have electricity, and it had been six months.”
And the amount of devastation was further evidenced in the fact that Swaney had to stay in Mobile, Ala., which is an hour away, because what hotels still remained were completely booked, mostly with building contractors who were working in the area.
He added that when he was there, Biloxi was just beginning to see some signs of normal life. A few restaurants had opened, and there was a couple of gas stations and supermarkets open. It took from August to February just to clear the main highways from the debris left behind from Katrina.
“The debris on the side of the road was stacked up so high, it looked like when we get big snowstorms here and all of the snow is piled up at every corner,” Swaney said. “Except there it was all just mud and dirt, furniture and garbage.”
About one in five homes were being rebuilt at the time he was there. He said many of the people probably never would return to the area.
But helping the people who were there was Swaney’s mission in Biloxi.
“There were so many people who had so many questions and problems that weren’t being addressed,” he said.
One major issue in the region that they helped with was local residents being evicted from their homes for not paying rent.
“These people were being evicted from homes that didn’t have roofs and running water or electricity,” he said. “So, we went to court with quite a few tenants and acted on their behalf. There were sometimes 15 to 20 eviction hearings a day.”
Swaney added that in most states there is a law called Implied Warrant of Habitability where tenants may withhold rent from a landlord if there are problems such as not having electricity or running water. He also said some the homes had makeshift roofs made out of tarps. That law is not on the books in Mississippi, so many people were stuck, Swaney explained.
“There were so many people who lost everything and were frustrated at how things were progressing and the hoops they had to jump through to get help, so that’s how we provided relief for them. You would be amazed at how much paperwork was involved in insurance claims and getting help from FEMA.”
“And it’s even harder to file paperwork that requires deeds and mortgage numbers and figures when you don’t have a home and all of those things are destroyed,” he said. “A lot of people were just utterly frustrated. So, we were able to help by making calls and making some headway as workers in the law field.”
Swaney said he and the legal workers he was with in Biloxi held a workshop one day to help people with paperwork and to tell them what services were available. He said it was sad to see that some of those people were seeing the literature for the first time and didn’t know what resources were available.
Swaney said he would like to return to Biloxi to see what progress has been made and how the people are doing there. But, entering his final year in law school, he said it would be difficult for him to find the time.
Looking back, Sawney said that even with their frustration, it was amazing to see how upbeat the people were that he encountered.
“They weren’t dwelling on all of the negativity,” he said “But they were trying to pick up the pieces and move on. They just needed somewhere to start. And that’s what we tried to help them with.”