Ripon College Days

Water logged. For days, New Orleans and other gulf coast cities were flooded as residents cried for help from the government. [Click to enlarge]

Devastation. Scenes like that above frequent the landscape in areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. While aid has finally arrived for many, it will take years to completely rebuild the countless homes and businesses destroyed during the worst natural disast [Click to enlarge]

Extensive flooding and inadequate evacuation and planning measures added to the catastrophe brought about by Katrina. [Click to enlarge]

As warnings of Katrina's arrival came, Jeanne Shera and her husband, Neal, decided to wait out the storm in their Hattiesburg, Miss., apartment, about 80 miles directly north of the Gulfport and Biloxi area. Expecting Katrina to pose no more a threat than Dennis or Ivan, which missed Hattiesburg last year, the Sheras were at home when Katrina hit.

"We took the same precautions, but we knew Katrina was different the morning the storm made landfall," says Shera, a member of the Ripon College class of 1999. "We lost power at 11 a.m. For about six hours, our walls and windows rattled like a train was passing within inches of the apartment. Amazingly, some of our neighbors in the complex were wading in knee-deep flood water that was full of debris."

Shera is one of many Ripon College alums who call gulf coast cities home. While Shera chose to wait out the storm, others sought safety at shelters, while still others spent hours on crowded highways to get out of the storm's path. In the aftermath of the worst natural disaster to strike the United States, those affected by the storm, like Shera, must now adjust to their changed scenery and lives. In the meantime, the nation is reaching out to the gulf coast, as is the Ripon community and college campus.

Firsthand Accounts

Although the Shera's apartment only sustained mild flooding, others underwent extensive flood damage, lost roofs and siding. The complex was without power for five days and without water and phone service for two. All this, literally, in the heat of summer. "We were so worried for our older neighbors that were in the 90 degree heat, 90 percent humidity, with no air conditioning."

After the storm, "almost every large tree was down and there were power lines everywhere," says Shera. "Some of the houses were crushed by trees and roofs were blown off completely. Streets the days after the storm were completely impassable."

Days after Katrina passed, Shera says she still hadn't cried.

"I find myself close to tears often," she says, "especially when the hospital rescue helicopter flies over my apartment. I just hope it is not going to get someone I know."

Alum Jeremy Wessel, of the class of 1990, was in Louisiana when Katrina hit. Wessel, who teaches at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La., waited out the storm at Nicholls, which was opened as a shelter for faculty, staff and students.

Though Wessel spent the worst hours of Katrina in shelter, he expresses deep sympathy for friends and members of his church who were not so lucky.

"The church I go to is in East New Orleans, one of the areas that got the worst flooding," says Wessel. "Our oldest member - recently turned 90 - had just finished preparing breakfast for his wife, who had Alzheimer's and was in a wheelchair when the flooding started. The water rose too quickly to get her out for the house and he was unable to keep his wife's head above water."

Other Ripon alums, Sara and Tim Haney, classes of 2004 and 2003, respectively, of River Ridge, La., evacuated their home just outside New Orleans upon receiving warning.

"On Saturday, Aug. 27, I was attending a workshop at Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, near the French Quarter, on environmental pollution when we received notice that the Aquarium was going to be closing and boarding up all windows in preparation for the hurricane," says Sara Haney. "Previously we had heard that Hurricane Katrina was a weak storm not headed for us."

The Haneys packed some clothing and drove to New Iberia, about two hours west of New Orleans to escape the storm.

"Monday, when the storm hit, we could see the circular rotation of the clouds, though we received less than an inch of rain and a maximum of 20 mile per hour winds," she says. "It seemed surreal to see the eye of the storm headed right for the city, people scrambling to leave, some stuck due to traffic or lack of transport."

Haney says they had nothing else to do but watch the events unfold.

"First the winds, then the rains came. Levees started to break, which are the only things that protect the city from flooding. Massive flooding ensued, some as high as second stories of buildings."

Since the storm, the Haneys have returned to their house, but only to collect some belongings. For months they will need to find somewhere else to live, perhaps with a coworker or at a hotel, says Haney.

Article Tools