BRANCACCIO:
Welcome to NOW.
Independence Park here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is the command center for state efforts to get on top of the Katrina disaster. With New Orleans destroyed, an estimated 100,000 flood evacuees have swelled the population by an astonishing 45%, straining roads, schools and other government services.
But not everyone in Katrina's path
has fled to centers of safety like this. In neighboring Mississippi, all along the
Gulf Coast thousands still remain.
Some say they couldn't get out.
Others didn't want to.
But the slow response of relief
efforts there has underscored some
disturbing questions about the
divisions of class and race
in America.
Producer Bryan Myers and
Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa
have our report.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Mississippi is in misery: the city of Gulfport nearly invisible behind the headlines of a devastated New Orleans.
Here — block after block — house after house — small destructive ground zeroes one after another. It's quieter here, but no less brutal. Lives reduced to piles upon piles of wood and brick.
From the rubble, a memory found and passed on for safe keeping. And these people are the lucky ones.
A spray-painted V on this house means a body lies underneath the rubble. The body of a man who we can only guess was a piano aficionado, who loved to sit on a rocking chair that now beckons to the sky.
A week after Katrina destroyed the city of Gulfport, there are the sights and sounds of help. Powerful helicopters circle over head. And small convoys of serious looking military men and women roar through.
There are a lot of people in need. But relief has been slow in coming to Gulfport, and in some cases, is non-existent. Many residents must still scavenge for the bare necessities of life. Matt Walker lives in a modest apartment complex in downtown Gulfport.
MATT WALKER: It seems as if they were not prepared for this, and that's really shocking to me. Cause as many storms as we get in America, you'd think they'd be better prepared on mobilization.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Walker, along with a few of his neighbors, managed to ride out the storm. Now, they're without food, water and electricity. But so far, nobody's been by to help them. So Walker, a writer, says he now has a new job.
MATT WALKER: Ice and water reconnaissance man. So I pay attention to where the ice distribution points are,. Today, I got really lucky. I was blessed. I got to a place where they were handing out those MRE's.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Each day, Walker heads out to try to find anyone who might be handing out food and water. It might seem absurd that over a week since the hurricane struck, Walker still needs to go out on reconnaissance, as he calls it. In fact, we spent several days in the gulfport area, and didn't see a single government entity — federal, state, or local — distributing food or water. The only people we saw handing out anything were private citizens like this man, who simply decided to take it upon himself to help out.
And just getting that ice and water home isn't easy. Walker, like a lot of people around here, doesn't have a car. But even if he did, it might not be of much use. Gas has been nearly impossible to come by in Gulfport. At one station we drove by, there were hundreds of people lined up hoping to get just a few gallons.
MATT WALKER: I'm on a bike. And I can only carry so much. So I paid this guy ten bucks to let me load up as much as I could on his truck and he put up my bike on and bring stuff for my neighbor. Whatever I get, I get for them as well.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Maybe you can't depend on the federal government, or the state, or the local, you know, you got to just figure it out yourself?
MATT WALKER: The government would be the last ones I would depend on. George Bush is flying over in helicopters. He has electricity. He has power. He's not living like this.
MARIA HINOJOSA: While we were filming here, we found plenty of people trying to figure out how to survive. They made it through the hurricane with their lives intact. But now a second kind of devastation faces them — the kind that comes from being poor before and after the storm.
Gulfport was home to some 70,000 people. They were told to leave, but some stayed because of poverty, family, or just plain stubbornness.
The First Baptist Church is a few hundred yards from the water. It bears witness to the power of the storm that wiped Gulfport off the map. On this morning, church member Sandi Herring has come back here for the first time since Katrina hit.
SANDI HERRING: This is where my heart is. This is my church.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Sandi Herring says she doesn't know if the church will rebuild. But just in case, she's saving pieces of the church's stained glass windows, looking forward to a day when church walls may rise again.
People all over Gulfport are trying to figure out how to move forward with their lives. Spend a little time on the streets of Gulfport, and you'll see plenty of people ferrying supplies on bikes. Otis Polk is one of them. He sets out everyday to find food and water for an ever growing group of relatives that have sought refuge at his home. We met Polk and his sister-in-law, Patricia Clayton, seeking shade in a family car — a car that had just about run out of gas.
MARIA HINOJOSA: You have no…
PATRICIA CLAYTON: Nothing.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Water?
PATRICIA CLAYTON: No. Mud water! That we flush the commode with. When we flush the commode, we have to use mud water.
OTIS POLK: They gave us some water like this here, but we been using that to wash our face and brush our teeth. That's it.
MARIA HINOJOSA: A woman of pride, Clayton excused herself for her dress and hair. "I am much prettier than this," she said.
A lot of people think this is the most advanced country in the world, we can send people to the moon.
PATRICIA CLAYTON: Why can't we get the help we need? We're taxpayers too. Throw the stuff on the street. We'll go get it. It feels like the end of the world to me already. Feels like the end of the world already.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Patricia Clayton had a place of her own — here at the Brookwood Trailer Court. But rising flood waters destroyed her home — a home that was everything she had.
CLAYTON: There is nothing, everything is gone. There is nothing.
HINOJOSA: Were you able to save anything? Even important papers?
CLAYTON: No, nothing. This was twelve feet under water.
HINOJOSA: You have no insurance?
CLAYTON: No, I can't afford insurance.
MARIA HINOJOSA: So it is that Clayton moved in with her brother-in-law, Otis. There are now seven people living in this small two bedroom apartment. There's no electricity, no running water, and a dumpster outside, overflowing with rotting garbage. Clayton says not a single government agency has come down this street to help anybody on the block.
HINOJOSA: You've been through a terrific catastrophe. Your expectation from the city, from the government?
CLAYTON: The government, whoever, I thought it would be quicker. I thought we was a rich nation, come on!
HINOJOSA: Who do you think should be here?
CLAYTON: The federal government. Somebody. It shouldn't be for me to try to figure that out. I pay taxes. It shouldn't be for me figure it out. Why should I have to sit here and figure it out. The help should be here.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Patricia Clayton's troubles aren't hers alone. Her thirteen-year-old son Xavier is autistic, and the schooling and professional attention he usually gets are gone. Now Xavier spends the day clapping and singing his favorite song.
CLAYTON: If you're happy and you know it clap your hands…
CLAYTON: It's not about me, it's about him, who's over there clapping right now, don't know what's happening, don't know what it's all about. And that's the bottom line, baby girl, I'm telling you the truth. There should be more help than this. Put something on each corner. Do something. Let's be real, come on?
MARIA HINOJOSA: Brother-in-Law Otis Polk has other worries. Like a lot of people, he wonders if his job will survive Hurricane Katrina. Polk is a custodian at a local school. Yet he hasn't been able to get ahold of anybody from the school district.
POLK: We don't know when we going back to work. They say maybe next year.
HINOJOSA: So you don't have any money.
POLK: No, nothing. No, nothing!
HINOJOSA: Do you feel abandoned?
CLAYTON AND POLK: Yes, I do. We abandoned. Yes, right now we are.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Some are now asking the question: is it an issue of race?
CLAYTON: That might have something to do with it too. But right now, everybody is equal. There's no poor, black, white. Everybody is on the same level. Most everybody is in the dark. Everybody is in the same lines getting gas. Everybody is in the same line getting water. So we're equal right now.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Just around the corner from Patricia and Otis, we see a sign we never imagined in a modern day America. For this family, some gas might mean a ride to the bank to cash a check which could buy some food. Instead, they're stuck here. It's a viscous cycle that has pushed the Brinkerhoff family into survival mode. The Brinkerhoffs, too, say that trying to find government food centers has proved impossible.
BRAD BRINKERHOFF: I wish FEMA would decide where they are going to stand. They have moved three times so far. Every time we hear about where they are gonna be and we try and go up there and get help, they're gone, they've moved somewhere else.
MARIA HINOJOSA: It is a surreal experience. These people are hungry and yet official cars pass by without even slowing down, says Dorothy. It's no wonder, she says, that some people in her neighborhood feel like they have gone crazy.
DOROTHY BRINKERHOFF: This is the main drag. This is where all the police officers come running through. They made sure this road was clear so they could come through. But what about us? They pass by and a wave is nice but say hey, do you need something? That would be a whole lot nicer.
MARIA HINOJOSA: With no official food distribution anywhere in sight, Dorothy's family has been surviving on old cans of Vienna sausage. Everyone, says Dorothy, has turned their backs on the poor no matter their race.
DOROTHY BRINKERHOFF: The president wants to fly over us? Well, he needs to spend a week or two with us with no AC, no water, no food. He needs to see what it feels like 'cause those steaks must taste pretty good and those hot showers must feel real good and the AC must be heaven. But if some help don't come soon, I may be seeing heaven before they do and I mean literally.
HINOJOSA: Why do you think this is happening?
DOROTHY BRINKERHOFF: Cause we poor. You see, we are on the north side of the tracks. Southside is rich folks. Let's get them first. They gotta make the money!
I am very disappointed because we could have done better. There are dead bodies floating over there. There are people missing. Come on. Wake up.
MARIA HINOJOSA: The sadness and devastation fans out beyond the small city of Gulfport like the rings of a spiral. More than 18,000 people who were able to get to cars are now in shelters hastily set up across the state of Mississippi. In Kiln, Mississippi, about 20 miles from Gulfport, we found a shelter for the sick and disabled.
MARTENA JAMIESON: Special needs are patients who are O2 dependent, who are insulin-dependent diabetic, with multiple medical problems, who are elderly and wheelchair-bound.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Martena Jamieson is a registered nurse. Her home was completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. She found herself at the shelter a week ago and has been volunteering around the clock ever since.
JAMIESON: I think I'm probably in denial. I'm just working and doing my work. As long as I don't go down there and look, I'm fine.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Like Gulfport, federal aid has been slow to arrive in small towns like Kiln, so into the void step people like Jamieson. You might think a shelter for the sick and disabled would get plenty of government help. But local Deputy Sheriff Don Quatroy says it's been a non-stop scavenger hunt.
DONALD QUATROY: We've been trying to scrounge for generators, getting wire and cords, bartering for food. Just the simple logistics of getting things here and there is terrible. But we've really been self-supporting ourselves, getting diesel from across the street, some people come with food. These nurses are killing themselves here since Sunday.
MARIA HINOJOSA: About 10 miles up the road, we found another shelter housing more hurricane survivors. They, too, had harsh words for the government.
WOMAN: I feel upset that no one is really helping that no one has any answers.
MARIA HINOJOSA: But there is anger at something else, too. Rosalie Sheffield has lived in the South her whole life. At the shelter, she believes she's found old attitudes about race, claiming her family had to sleep on the floor while white families got cots and mattresses.
SHEFFIELD: I lost everything. But I was hoping that would change the attitude of a lot of Americans, but is hasn't. It has not changed the attitude toward race.
MARIA HINOJOSA: The Red Cross, which operates this shelter, says there's no way anyone would be treated that way because of race, saying they provide services to all "across the board."
Further north, another shelter, and another step away from the lives these families once knew. Many of them were only able to escape with the clothes on their backs and a few dollars in their pockets.
NAFEESA MCCOY: We just got up and left.
ANNE MARIE ROBINSON: We left everything behind, clothes and all.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Nafeesa McCoy and her sister-in-law fled as the eye of Katrina bore down on the coast. They're grateful they made it out alive with their children. But they still wait to hear about family members who stayed behind.
MCCOY: I can't find my mom or my sisters or my brothers. I went on the Internet yesterday and their names weren't coming up. It's just been horrifying for me. It's like a nightmare. Every morning I wake up and I still don't know where my family is, and it hurts.
MARIA HINOJOSA: And now, even more pain and frustration. These families are part of the largest relocation of Americans since The Civil War. Officials don't know how long they can keep this shelter open. Local churches have offered to put up some, but others will be headed for places they've only read about. During our visit, families were being asked if they would be willing to move to states as far as Ohio or Iowa.
P.A. ANNOUNCEMENT: The buses will be here this afternoon and you'll be on your way to a little bit more stable environment.
MARIA HINOJOSA: McCoy's sister-in-law, Anne Marie Robinson, says they're not sure where they'll go next… maybe Georgia, where she has an uncle, or maybe Texas.
ROBINSON: We don't know which way to go, which way to turn. We just dropped off into somebody else's state, nobody to talk to. The whole family just split up. We just feel like throwaway people, that's how I feel like. I just feel like we throwed away now. But by the grace of God, we're all here.
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