Millions of people donated money and some invited newly homeless Southerners seeking refuge into their homes after Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast in August 2005.
But for Monroe residents Kevin Martin, 31, and Travis Webster, 26, giving money to a charitable organization just wasn’t enough.
The two friends quit their jobs, loaded up a dark green Ford F250 and waved goodbye to family in Snohomish County.
“I wanted to go help,” Martin said. “I wanted to help in 9/11, but didn’t want to join the Army.”
Less than a week after Hurricane Katrina hit land, Martin, a landscaper, and Webster, a superintendent at an excavating company, headed south on I-5. They didn’t know exactly where they were going. They didn’t have any contacts. They had no place to stay and very little money. They just drove.
What the two friends did have was a new excavator that was being sent to them in Mississippi so that Martin and Webster could begin to help families rebuild and to start their own business.
“As soon as we crossed the state line into Mississippi it was ‘Whoa. Reality,’ ” Martin said.
What they witnessed seemed unbelievable, even after seeing nightmarish images on the nightly news.
The destruction in Mississippi was immense. Debris were piled 10 feet high, and the smell of decay and waste was overwhelming. Where there had been houses on the coast, there remained only concrete slabs, Martin said.
“There was a boat in a McDonald’s drive-through,” Webster said. “There was garbage in trees.”
And there was also lots of insects.
Once they arrived in Kiln, Miss., a small town of less than 3,000 people, then into the coastal town of Waveland, population approximately 7,000, Martin and Webster found that getting work was difficult. Not everyone coming to the area could just go to work.
Webster had worked on some storm cleanups in and around Snohomish County, but said nothing could compare to the scale of what he and Martin were helping to take on in Mississippi.
“The further south we went, the worse it got,” Webster said. “There was still no power when we got there.”
Martin and Webster decided that getting to know locals might help. They went to churches and volunteered to work helping people move debris out of their homes. They met a couple in Kiln who offered to put them up.
“Their house was in five feet of water,” Webster said.
While Martin and Webster waited for their Kobelco excavator to arrive, they did some charity work. When the machine came they began working to clear the land and pick up piles of debris.
“It was like a big tank coming down the road,” Martin said.
The experience in Mississippi opened Martin’s eyes to how government works, and to corruption. He said he experienced part of history and he also experienced Southern life and the hospitality of the people even when they were suffering.
“People whose lives were devastated were helping us,” Webster said.
One of those people was David Baria who lived on the beach in Bay St. Louis, Miss., and who when he returned to find his home after Hurricane Katrina, could not locate it.
“It wasn’t where we left it,” Baria said. “We actually couldn’t find the house for several trips.”
When Baria, 44, did find what had been his home, it was in a pile with other people’s houses more than a mile inland.
Baria’s family lived with his brother for several days, then went to Jackson. The family moved again and eventually went back to Bay St. Louis where his children go to school and Baria has a job.
“We’ve been back for a year,” Baria said, noting that one of the lasting effects of the hurricane is that insurance now “costs more than some people’s mortgage.”
Baria met Martin and Webster when they were hired by a former neighbor.
“They started a little business for cleanup services,” Baria said.
Baria got to know the Monroe men. He was aware that sometimes people coming from out of state were helpful to the recovery process. Others ripped off some of the local residents.
“We had a very good business and personal relationship,” Baria said. “I felt like an uncle to them, and they were valuable to us. They had a machine and could do the work.”
Baria says that the area would not be where it is now without volunteers and people like Martin and Webster who came in from all around the United States.
“They came down here on a hope and a prayer with a lot of ability and a big machine,” Baria said. “They had no assurance of work.”
After a few weeks of cleaning up debris, Martin and Webster could see roads and ditches taking shape. Still, the going was slow. “There was not as much change as you would think,” Webster said.
Baria says that the victims of Hurricane Katrina feel a little forgotten. Not enough of the federal relief money has gotten into the hands of the local people, and thousands in the area are still living in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“It’s not a good situation,” Baria said.
Martin and Webster worked with the government until January 2006, then began private work. They came home three times during their 18-month stay. After a year and a half Webster began to miss his family and his life in Monroe. “I wanted to get my business started,” he said.
The friends came back to Monroe in February and have opened Premier Excavating. Business is going well and they are staying busy.
The people still living on the Gulf Coast are continuing to rebuild their lives even though the charitable wave of others has subsided. “I think it’s out of people’s minds,” Martin said.
Martin and Webster are quality people who took a big risk to go to the devastated area and pitch in and help, Baria said. “The recovery effort was unprecedented in the history of the United States, as far as I’m concerned.” he said. “Washington should be proud of those two boys.”
Christina Harper is a Snohomish County freelance writer. She can be reached at harper@heraldnet.com.
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