Katrina’s wake hard to take

Published 11:11 pm Thursday, August 30, 2007

Standing 6 feet, 6 inches, Jim Alphonse keeps bumping his head. He and his wife, Sheryl, live in a 32-foot trailer. Making their way from a tiny bedroom to the kitchen or bathroom, the quarters are cramped.

It’s home, though or as close to it as they can get, for now.

“Living in this little FEMA trailer, I’ve got knots on my head,” said Jim Alphonse, 64.

Their home is Chalmette, La., about 20 miles east of New Orleans in St. Bernard Parish. Their true home is a brick house Sheryl Alphonse’s parents built in the 1940s.

She was 2 when her family moved in. By the time Hurricane Katrina forced them out in 2005, she and her husband had raised four children and built a lifetime of memories in the house.

The catastrophe scattered their family across the country, from Memphis, Tenn., and Alabama to Washington state. Jim Alphonse’s mother lives in Lynnwood and he has a sister in the area.

For more than a year, the couple found shelter from the storm in Snohomish, where the Zion Lutheran Church fixed up a house it owns so the Alphonses could live there.

“The Lord provided us to them, to help in their time of need. That’s the bottom line,” said the Rev. Richard Flath, pastor at Zion Lutheran.

“I have good memories of Snohomish. The house is right next to the church, and people all donated stuff,” Sheryl Alphonse said Wednesday, the second anniversary of the day Katrina slammed Louisiana. “I still wanted to be home,” she said by phone from the trailer provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The trailer is parked next to their house in Chalmette. On Wednesday, the town held somber remembrances for about 150 people from St. Bernard Parish killed by Katrina. The parish, equivalent to a county here, was once home to more than 60,000 people. Fewer than half have returned since Katrina.

The Alphonses are back, but have far to go before they can live in their house. This summer, Jim Alphonse said, volunteers from a Louisiana church helped gut the house, removing mold-covered plaster walls. The tile roof was damaged and windows were broken.

Wednesday, ironically two years from the day of the terrible event, came the best news they’ve had since the storm. It was the closing date for their Road Home grant. After months of waiting, the Alphonses learned they’ll receive $149,025 in federal money administered by the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

The grant stipulates that they stay at least three years in their house.

“I just feel sorry for all the other people who haven’t gotten anything,” Jim Alphonse said. He’s grateful for the federal aid, but is critical of Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco’s administration of it. “FEMA came in and gave our governor billions and billions of dollars,” said Alphonse, who received a letter asking them to return last November, but waited many months for any word of financial help.

“Just to get the money, we felt like criminals. We had to be fingerprinted and have mug shots,” he said.

Life near New Orleans is fraught with hardships. With few businesses open, the Alphonses drive 45 minutes to Slidell, La., to buy groceries. When I mentioned seeing news reports of rampant crime in New Orleans, Jim Alphonse said, “Believe it.”

“Where we live, we have good police protection. But cross the line into Orleans Parish, it’s scary,” he said. “You don’t want to go to town.”

In Snohomish, Flath said Jim Alphonse stopped by the church during a visit for his mother’s birthday in July. As he did while living here, Alphonse gave the congregation a sweet taste of Louisiana.

He prepared beignets, fried pastries. “Jim has a special way of making them,” Flath said. “They worshipped with us, and that was one of the ways he could give back a little.”

In New Orleans, Alphonse said, “every Sunday morning, people have their beignets. They’re like a doughnut, but with powdered sugar on top. People go out drinking all night, and have their coffee and beignet in the morning,” he said.

With luck and toil, the couple may someday enjoy the treats in their own kitchen. And the Snohomish house?

“Our congregation found another family,” Flath said. “Or another family has found us.”

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.