Shelter and the Storm

On a Friday in August 2005, Dr. Vera Triplett flew with her family from her home in New Orleans to Washington, D.C., for what she expected would be a long weekend filled with sightseeing, relaxation and research into legislation on child abuse — the subject of her advocacy work. On Saturday morning, she turned on the television and watched her hometown battered and drowned by Hurricane Katrina. She knew she wasn’t going home anytime soon.

Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana coast on Aug. 29, 2005. Three weeks later, Hurricane Rita hit, compounding the devastation. Nearly, 1,500 people died as a result of the natural disaster. According to the Louisiana Recovery Authority, over 1.3 million Louisianans were displaced, and 200,000 homes and 40 schools were destroyed. Property losses are estimated at more than $100 billion. The 22 million tons of debris resulting from Hurricane Katrina was 25 times more rubble than the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Dr. Triplett is the assistant professor of counseling at Our Lady of Holy Cross College (OLHCC). She also runs the Thomas E. Chambers Counseling Center at the college. She works primarily with issues relating to children and adolescents, often dealing with kids who’ve been abused in the criminal justice system. After Hurricane Katrina hit, Dr. Triplett played a major role in helping to rebuild her community, the Gentilly neighborhood and the rest of New Orleans.

Next American City asked Dr. Triplett about her life before and after Hurricane Katrina.

Next American City: What was your reaction when you saw what Hurricane Katrina did to your home and your hometown?

Dr. Vera Triplett: We had been in Washington, D.C., when the hurricane hit. I was going to look at legislation that had to do with abuse. We left our house on Friday and planned to come back on Monday. I had no inkling ’til Saturday morning. We made our way to Texas. We had family in Texas. We were watching television in awe. When we got a satellite photo of our neighborhood, I remember saying that it might be a matter of years before we were able to go home. We leased a house in Texas with 13 family members. We were very fortunate that my husband worked for a company that had an office in Houston. I got a job in Texas. Our situation was vastly different from many others.

NAC: What made you want to come back to New Orleans?

DVT: When people started saying we can’t come back. Not because it wasn’t viable, they just didn’t want you to. We bought that house in New Orleans when I was pregnant. Maybe it was worth a shot to get our lives back. I don’t know if a lot of people understand it.

You hear about properties and material things lost. What you don’t hear about is people’s lives. The park and the church. These were things that were hugely important. We had a good life. It’s not the Wild, Wild West here [in New Orleans]. People are cultured and educated.

NAC: How did you start planning your return?

DVT: Everybody wanted to know what they were doing in the city. On Canal Street and the French Quarter. I joined a Yahoo forum dedicated to my neighborhood, Gentilly. We started with a total of eight people and now there are thousands of people on that forum.

I introduced the idea of cleaning up our neighborhood. The local Episcopal church, Chapel of the Holy Comforter, had not flooded. It was an oasis of green space. Father Roger Allen was on the forum and he offered to stage the cleanup at the church. I ended up meeting a lot of people in the neighborhood, even people who don’t live in Gentilly anymore.

NAC: When did you actually move back to New Orleans?

DVT: We came in November 2005. Our house was gutted and ready to be worked on in December 2005. We moved into our house in July [2006]. When we moved in, we still didn’t have a kitchen. We had little furniture.

NAC: When did your work shift to community advocacy?

DVT: I started the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association. It encompasses 20 to 30 neighborhoods [with the goal of giving everyone] a more powerful voice.

When the Unified New Orleans Plan (UNOP) was formed, I was chosen to be one of the people that represented Gentilly. I became the community organization chair. What we did was act like gatekeepers of the process of rebuilding. We were sending out city planners and getting input from the citizens.

Twice a month, we held public forums in City Council chambers. People came in with questions and concerns. That’s when I first began to see some of the pain and distress, frustration and sheer exhaustion. Not a lot of people understood what the people of New Orleans were going through. It was like Lord of the Flies — survival of the fittest.

We also had community congresses that would go on all day. We provided practical things like public transportation, childcare and two full meals. When the hurricane hit, families were disbanded so grandmothers weren’t there to help watch kids.

The other integral thing was that there were entertainment breaks. Little personal dance breaks to make people feel better.

NAC: What did you learn from the forums?

DVT: Hope is something that contributes to the mental health of a person. It’s the last defense mechanism before a nervous breakdown. When urban designers and planners started telling people their neighborhood was going to be green space, it was devastating for some people. One of my purposes was to help the urban designers and planners understand that human beings were being affected.

New Orleans is a city of neighborhoods. People take pride in the neighborhood where they live.

What does recovery really mean? When you talk about recovery, it’s not just about the infrastructure. You’re talking about the recovery of a human being.  

NAC: How did you get involved with rebuilding New Orleans?

DVT: I sort of got thrown into it. My neighborhood was in 13 feet of water.

When my husband and I made a decision to come back, we knew it wasn’t going to be something simple. I lived in a neighborhood that was vibrant, and I knew it could be that again. A number of people — myself included — threw ourselves into rebuilding. It contributed to our mental health. The rebuilding was something larger than our personal situation.

That’s when I noticed that the process of recovery could contribute to the mental health [of New Orleans].

NAC: How has your job changed?

DVT: My job didn’t change. My responsibilities did. In addition to working at Our Lady of Holy Cross College, I maintain a private practice. My practice changed from working with children to working with adults who were still grappling with post-Katrina traumatic issues.

NAC: You said you dealt with child abuse issues. How did the incidence rate of child abuse change with Hurricane Katrina?

DVT: Abuse skyrocketed in the aftermath of the storm. People who were least likely to abuse their children were abusing their children. There was all sorts of abuse happening — drug abuse, spousal abuse, child abuse. Much of the abuse is linked to stress and frustration. There was a lack of resources and people didn’t know where to go for help.

NAC: How’s your home now?

DVT: It’s 2008 and there are still things that need to be done. I’m standing in my den and there needs to be a threshold. Light switches are missing. We don’t have curtains in our living room. Tile work still needs to done in the bathroom. We need time, resources and, of course, money. Once you run out of insurance money, it’s all out-of-pocket. My flood insurance paid 100 percent of policy. My home insurance paid $1,600 — that was supposed to cover the cost of the roof.

NAC: How’s your neighborhood doing?

DVT: It feels great. It’s a celebration whenever someone moves back in. Our neighbor moved back two weeks ago. It’s sort of an exciting thing. We were the first ones back in our house in a three-to-four-block radius. There were still no streetlights, no grocery stores, no gas station. We were the pioneers.

NAC: How is the community doing?

DVT: As a whole, things are beginning to move forward. People are still full of frustration because things should move faster. I don’t really have expectations, because it’s such an unprecedented event. I don’t know anywhere else, except in the Bible, where a whole city was underwater.

NAC: What are the issues you’re working on now?

DVT: I think I have probably tried to settle back into what I’ve done before — child advocacy. I continuously get pulled back into post-Katrina work.

The thing that changed most about me is I’m more willing to put myself out on a limb. Before Katrina, my attitude was more like “I don’t like this, but whatever.” Now, if I don’t like something, I’m willing to be a voice for the issue.