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Hurricane Katrina
Evacuees find help to adjust
Some Katrina evacuees came to the Tampa Bay area to be with relatives. Now what? The Red Cross steps in.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published September 6, 2005
TAMPA - Minnie Varnado and her husband, Alton, need to see a doctor.
Mrs. Varnado, 74, thinks she might have a bladder infection, and soon she will run out of her cholesterol medication. Mr. Varnado, 79, had triple bypass surgery last summer and will soon need to refill his heart medicine.
The Varnados fled their brick colonial house in New Orleans' Jefferson Parish two days before Hurricane Katrina struck.
They left everything and flew to Tampa to stay with their grandson, Rodney Wilson, figuring they'd return home after a few days. Now they know otherwise. And like thousands of other Gulf Coast residents, they are left to wonder: What now?
What will they do for money? Where they will live? Which of their neighbors and friends got out alive?
For help, the Varnados have turned to the American Red Cross, whose Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg chapters are addressing the urgent needs of hundreds of evacuees from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Dozens of volunteers are working long days to make sure families have medical care, food, clothing, and temporary shelter.
"We try to get them to a point where they can care for themselves," said Mary O'Geary, casework manager for the Red Cross' Tampa Bay chapter.
The Tampa Bay chapter's headquarters off Himes Avenue in Tampa has seen 240 families since Thursday.[ About 50 families have come to the St. Petersburg office on Fourth Street N.
O'Geary said many families are staying with relatives, but they need money for food and clothes.
"You can imagine if you lost everything, you'd want some kind of dignity and independence," said Chip Collins, manager of the St. Petersburg office.
John Fournier, 37, and his wife, Pam, 36, carried diapers wrapped in Red Cross bags to their family's minivan Monday morning.
The couple and their three children fled their St. Tammany Parish home at 5 a.m. Sunday and drove south to stay with family in St. Petersburg.
Like many others, the Fourniers don't know when they'll be able to go home.
They're enrolling their kids in local schools. Fournier worked as an electrician and a porter for Carnival Cruise Lines. Now, he's unemployed.
Fournier hopes he can find work in Florida.
Other evacuees are staying at First United Methodist Church in Tarpon Springs, which has room to shelter 250 people, said John Mitchell, director of emergency services for the Tampa Bay chapter.
So far, the church is home to about a dozen evacuees who were flown to Tampa on military planes from New Orleans. One woman, Alice Adams, 76, was rescued from her apartment complex by a boat a couple of days ago. Others stayed, but Adams decided she had to leave.
"I said to myself, "Me and my old suitcase are gonna get on a camel, a whale, I don't care, but I'm getting out,"' she said.
The Varnados are well acquainted with the perils of water in New Orleans. A flood in 1995 left 2 feet of water inside their Jefferson Parish home, destroying all the furniture and damaging walls and floors. They're pretty sure little, if anything, is left of the house this time.
Alton Varnado moved into the home in 1976, 12 years after Hurricane Betsy devoured his house in the Lower Ninth Ward. In 1987, he went to a high school reunion and saw Minnie, the girl he was so smitten with as a teenager. They were both widowed and soon they fell in love. They married in 1989.
Minnie Varnado doesn't like to dwell on all of the mementos and material goods that likely were lost in Katrina's aftermath.
"As long as we're alive," she said, smiling, "we can get more stuff."
And as uncertain as her and her husband's future is, evacuating to Tampa has given them time with their great-grandson Cole, born six weeks ago today.
"I do kind of like it here in Tampa," she said. "And I love that little baby."
--Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com
[Last modified September 6, 2005, 20:46:59]
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