On Monday, April 20, we shared Part I of The Miracles from the Gulf after Katrina Part I, inspirational stories by Bill Keeler, as shared with Dana Lamb, are offered in loving memory of Dr. Bob Collier, David Lloyd, John Biddle, and Henry Paris—whose lives continue to inspire. We continue with Part II.
We found the despondent Jimmy Lamy (that Brother Bennie had told us about), about 20 miles down the road in a town called Pearlington. As Katrina approached, Jimmy, a hospital employee, stayed behind to attend to his duties (including moving patients to higher floors to escape the rising waters), but had sent his family to safety in Kansas. Now he was alone, living in a small camping trailer on his property. The house’s interior was completely destroyed. As Jimmy had wrung his hands, wondering what to do, a group of volunteers that called themselves “His Hands and Feet” one day appeared to help him clear out all the damaged furnishings and soggy sheetrock. Jimmy told us that it was the worst day of his life, as he and this group carried everything he owned to pile at the road, ready to be hauled to the dump. Robin had told him that she just could not return with the children to a washed-out home with no furniture or appliances. The inside of the house was devoid of everything, with only the outside brick structure and internal wood frame still intact – only the subfloor was in place. There were stacks of new sheetrock (supplied by Brother Bennie) in the now dried-out house, but there had been no one to install it. Jimmy appeared totally discouraged, saying very little and not knowing where to start. After working there for several days, Jimmy prepared a huge lunch as a send-off. We cheered when he announced that he had just talked to Robin, and his family was returning. Jimmy introduced us to another angel of mercy, Larry Randall, who was the manager of the Pearlington Recovery Center. Larry arranged for our team to do many homes in and around Pearlington on future trips down. During the next 5 years that we worked in Mississippi and Louisiana, we would find situations similar to Jimmy’s with family after family. We would return time after time to the Lamy home to stay while working on other homes – their children sometimes sleeping under the dining room table to make room for us. The Lamys have visited us over the years and will always be like family.
There were so many heartbreaking stories. We heard stories about mothers putting floats on their children to ride out the storm as those children watched their pets drown, stories about an elderly man surviving the storm alone in his attic with his dogs, and stories about families forced to leave their pets to drown in their homes. There were so many stories about people losing everything–including their lives. As we listened, we began loving these people. Inside their tiny, hot FEMA trailers, they would cook for us their best family recipes to show their appreciation. They would lay cash in our hands at fast-food places on our way into town – always with a “thank you.” At the end of every work trip, the Lamys hosted a low-country boil for all workers, with neighbors coming in to say goodbye. While talking to our church at home, Dr. Bob once said, “When I talk about the Mississippi people, it always makes me cry. Their spirits of perseverance were unbelievable”.
During a span of five years, seventy-plus people from our church would return to the Gulf to work (from teens to 80-year-olds) – along with Presbyterians from Knoxville and Chattanooga, friends, and our members’ family members from out of town (from as far away as Washington, D.C., and New York City). One of my friends, Lan Saylor, came from Arizona.
It was during this time that we bonded in close friendships as a church – relationships we couldn’t seem to develop through regular day-to-day activities at the church. David Lloyd made the comment, “I just feel so needed here.” There was just something about the sweaty, long days and achy backs that just brought us all together as one body in Christ. This work group started out as OUR church and ended up with people from everywhere – non-Presbyterians working alongside Presbyterians. It was just people helping people – the way it was supposed to be.
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