Starting from Scratch

By Cathy Booth Thomas/ Chalmette

Inside the ExxonMobil refinery offices he commandeered after Hurricane Katrina, where temporary telephone wires dangle from the ceiling alongside sticky yellow flytraps dotted with dead flies and mosquitoes, Henry (Junior) Rodriguez is deliberating on the future of devastated St. Bernard Parish, east of New Orleans. As he downs a bag of chocolates that constitutes dinner, his considerable paunch on display, the parish president rehearses his upcoming appeal to Congress: with no taxpayers and no businesses, St. Bernard has money for just one month's payroll. Rodriguez wants help from Washington--or else. "Do people realize we produce 30% of the nation's gas and crude down here? Maybe I'll shut down the only refinery in the nation that processes Venezuelan oil," he says.

A couple of miles up the Mississippi, on an aging casino ferry hired by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to house homeless parish employees, councilman-at-large Joey DiFatta is echoing that subversive sentiment after hearing some critics in Washington claim that St. Bernard should not be rebuilt at all. "I'll tell you why we need to rebuild this parish. When that bastard up north is paying $5 a gallon because the two biggest oil refineries in Louisiana--both located here--are not producing gas for his fat-cat car, that's when he'll learn about St. Bernard Parish," he says. "They better realize we count. The rest of the nation capitalizes on us, and we're tired of it."

If the rhetoric seems strident, it's only because the situation in St. Bernard Parish is so desperate. Unlike in New Orleans, which is turning on the lights and water spigots, the 67,000 people who live on the peninsula to the east--mostly white and middle-class homeowners--have nothing at all to go back to. Katrina's tidal surge, with waves of up to 25 ft., was so strong, it moved houses--their concrete foundations still attached--down streets. The parish president, who lost his home like everyone else did, figures there is just one habitable house left out of 25,000 in the entire parish. Even the homes that "survived" Katrina are foul with mud, mold and nests of water moccasins. From 50% to 80% of the parish may be so structurally unsound, it will have to be razed.

Rodriguez figures that with only 20,000 to 25,000 residents expected back this year, the parish will have to somehow survive without sales and property taxes for two years. Five weeks after Katrina, there is no electricity and no hope of any in the coming weeks. Not one gas station or grocery store is open. The lone hospital has been shuttered--for good. Sheriff Jack Stephens, who has had to lay off half his department, is worried about keeping the parish's remaining 182 deputies on the payroll. All his communications and tactical gear, along with most of his department's 136 vehicles, were lost. With the National Guard largely gone, his men are stretched thin, answering calls about looters and snakes. "We have lots of reptile infestations," says Stephens, who fled one house after encountering 15 water moccasins. "[That's] not in my contract." His men last week caught beasts of a different kind--an organized gang of looters.

As bad as things may seem, it is hard to imagine just abandoning a 1,329-sq.-mi. strip of bayous inhabited since the 1700s. The locals certainly have no intention of beating a hasty retreat. After all, they have a history of resilience: the famous Battle of New Orleans, which decisively ended the War of 1812 and sent the British home in defeat, was fought here. Indeed, by the end of the week the region's take-no-prisoners attitude seemed to be bearing some fruit on Capitol Hill, with Congress hastily approving $1 billion in disaster loans to help devastated Gulf Coast communities pay salaries when tax payments dry up. One beneficiary: New Orleans, where Mayor Ray Nagin last week had to lay off 3,000 employees. At the same time, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman was publicly saying Congress should ante up for higher levees to withstand Category 4 or 5 hurricanes--a stance long taken by St. Bernard and Orleans parishes, where Katrina's winds and waves ripped away another 5 ft. of protection.

With water and sewers still iffy onshore, the 30-year-old ferry Scotia Prince serves as St. Bernard's meeting place and dormitory. Inside, Red Cross posters (STRESSED?, they ask) compete with the hand-scrawled signs of the parish (ST. BERNARD PARISH'S REBIRTH: RETURN, REBUILD, REMAIN). Council meetings take place in the worn-looking casino, under signs for the $1 and $5 card tables. Only a handful of people show up for meetings, but the news gets out online: where to file insurance and compensation claims, when schools might open. Employees, used to sleeping on the floor and eating packaged meals ready to eat for the past month, now live onboard and dine on hot food. Every once in a while, a celebrity chef like Paul Prudhomme sends over a dish or dessert. (The warm pralines were a big hit.)

Aboard the ferry, local businessmen wheel and deal and sometimes talk like visionaries. Henry Smith, the man in charge of federal No Child Left Behind programs in St. Bernard, daydreams about building schools on stilts with dorms above them for shelter during hurricane season. Right now, he's just hoping to turn an old Wal-Mart into classrooms for some of the parish's 8,500 students. Builder Terry Tedesco, who sold pricey half-acre lots in his Woodlands development before Katrina flooded him out, is pitching ready-built homes for $150,000. "Why rebuild a house that's 60 years old with aluminum wires and termites?" he asks.

All over the devastated parish, families are trying to decide whether to stay or move on. "At first, people think they're going to fix their homes," says councilwoman Judy Hoffmeister, shaking her head as she watches a friend, Calvin Melerine, 66, shovel mud from his two-story home and ditch one piece of furniture after another. "They come in with U-Hauls, and they're lucky if they leave with a garbage bag full," she says. At her house around the block, Hoffmeister plans to rescue some bronzed baby shoes, but she turns away in tears at the door after realizing someone has already rummaged through her ruins. "There's nothing left to save here," she says. Her family, whose members lived within six blocks of one another, is scattering. Now in her 60s, she faces yet another mortgage--that is, if she can get a title search done and record it with the parish. There is no clerk at the courthouse; even the parish's legal stamps were lost.

Despite insurance companies settling flood claims on cars and houses at a record rate (State Farm signed off on approximately $150 million across Louisiana in one day last week), the obstacles to rebuilding are daunting. Residents have been told not to return until next summer, since there will be no parishwide electricity for eight months to a year. Mail service won't begin until next year. The biggest concern, however, remains a spill from the Murphy Oil refinery in Meraux, which inundated 1,200 homes with 1 million gal. of crude during Katrina. Although the spill was not toxic, the few people who have ventured back say they are worried about the long-term effects of living in the area, especially for children. Some have even filed lawsuits, about which the company has no comment. Standing in the oil-stained streets after returning-- officially triumphant--from Washington, Rodriguez contemplates the gloomy future of his leveebound parish. "Every time we went to Washington, we never got a damn thing--nickels and dimes--for coastal erosion. I predicted a long time ago this was gonna happen," he says. "I just never thought it was gonna happen on my watch."

With reporting by Greg Fulton/Atlanta