NOVEMBER 5 . 2005 • Q-NOTES
National
Dead still being plucked from ravages of Katrina
from page 1
Marti Ackerman (third from left)
with other volunteers at a shel
ter in Louisiana.
spared the brunt of the hurricane and
the subsequent flooding some things are
slowly returning to normal.
The city’s popular predominantly gay
district — the French Quarter — is such an
example.
“You can walk through the French
Quarter now and if you didn’t know
you’d never suspect that there had been
such a devastating hurricane to hit the
city," says Marti Ackerman, a Charlotte
resident who volunteered with the Red
Cross to help victims of the disaster.
“Most of the businesses in this area are
back open, aithough there are a few that
are still boarded up.”
According to Ackerman, large parts of
the city have been devastated.
“I don’t see how people who lived in
the Ninth Ward neighborhood are ever
going to be able to return home. It was
one of the most horrific things i’d ever
seen. They’re still pulling bodies out and
the smell of mold and death is every
where. if you’ve ever seen pictures of
Hiroshima — that’s what it looks like.
Everything is grey — with dried mud on
top of vehicles. Houses with holes. There’s
just so much destruction.”
Ackerman is the partner of architectur
al designer Robbie Warren, who was pro
filed in Q-Nofes’ QrLiving section in
August. Warren had hoped to join in
Ackerman on the trip last month, but pre
vious commitments prevented her from
going.
A former resident of Metarie, La.,
Ackerman says she feels a deep connec
tion for the area. “With the sheer mass of
destruction and devastation we felt it
was our job on a humanitarian level to
do something. I was fortunate enough to
be able to take the time to go down there.
It was like a moral and spiritual obliga
tion. It would have been inconceivable
not to go.”
Ackerman says she was deployed with
the Red Cross for three weeeks. First to
Baton Rouge and then to Covington out
side of Slidell. Baton Rouge had little dam
age.
“In that three weeks I generally worked
12 to 14 hours a day. During the three
weeks, 1 only took one day off.”
It was on that day that Ackerman
visited New Orleans
and witnessed the de
struction in the Ninth
Ward neighborhood.
“I also went to a town
called Eden Isles — it
doesn’t really exist
anymore. Wer’e talk
ing piles of debris
that’s 10 feet tall that
runs the entire length
of the road and that’s
as long as 10 miles.
Houses were moved,
destroyed and some
just weren’t there any
more. It took my
breath away at how
devastating it was.
It’s almost incom
prehensible to see where these people
lived and F]ow they’re gonna’ rebuild their
lives. 1 know that I helped. But it feels like
a drop in the ocean.”
Charleston resident Linda Ketner, a reg
ular contributor to Q-Notes and the
President of South Carolina Equality
Coalition has also seen first hand the dev
astation left behind by Hurricane Katrina.
Ketner and her partner Beth have a made
a handful of trips to the region — the first
Sept. 27 through Oct. 4.
Ketner initially sent out a mass email to
friends and acquaintances soliciting dona
tions of goods and money. They packed up
a U-Haul full and set off in search of peo
ple who needed help. They weren’t too dif
ficult to find.
“We worked all week in a town called
Pass Christian,” says Ketner. “The devas
tation [there] is almost total. It’s like noth
ing I’ve ever seen or hope to see again.
8,200 of the 8,500 homes are gone — just
completely gone. 300 homes are in some
state of ‘standing’ but all except a hand
ful are completely gutted.”
Accorsing to Ketner, the town suffered a
30-foot-plus storm surge — with 33
known dead and more still missing.
“Many of the Pass Christian population
are elsewhere for now,” Ketner explains.
“The 600-700 people living in town are
living in various stages of awful. The mid
dle class ones have small trailers or tents
beside their gutted houses — or where
their houses used to be. The poor are
mostly sleeping out in the open under
trees. This situation is going to last a long,
long time.”
At press time Linda and Beth had
returned to Pass Christian and were not
expecting to be back in Charleston before
early November.
“Magnificent and intoxicating”
- Los Angeles Times
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