WHO? Richard C. Paradis, 59, Waddington. Mr. Paradis, who retired in 2004 as director of training at the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center, is leading a group from First Presbyterian Church in Ogdensburg to Mississippi in May to assist in the hurricane recovery effort. It's the church's fifth time heading to Gulfport, Miss., led by Mr. Paradis.
HOW WAS THE GROUP FORMED? The hurricane was in August 2005 and shortly after that, friends of ours from the church went down, Edward and Jana Norris. Ed has a brother that lives down in that area. They toured Mississippi, primarily looking at Biloxi and Gulfport, where we have gone most of our times. They came back and presented to the church and said, 'This is what is going on down there.' They had some dramatic pictures and had a great presentation. Ed was looking to send a team down.
It's kinda funny because my wife and I both sing in the choir, and I am standing at one end of the tenor section. She's over in the soprano section. I'm thinking 'Boy, I would really like to go to this.' But I don't think Pat would want to go or want to see me gone too long. After church, we get into the car and she said she would really like to go on that trip.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO TRAVEL TO MISSISSIPPI? I think, in part, it's because we had been retired for a while. We had the time to do it and we had the resources. We spend about $800 per volunteer, each time we make a trip. We raise about $200 of that through the church with fundraisers and contributions. We asked the volunteers if they can come up with the $600 to pay that portion of it.
I think going through the ice storm in 1998, it probably planted the seed for us. We had people that came up from Hawaii, linemen, to restore our electricity. It just kinda stirred something in us and to give back in that way.
FIRST EXPERIENCES OF BEING IN MISSISSIPPI AFTER HURRICANE STRUCK? Gulfport was very close to where the eye of the hurricane made land. They had a lot of damage from the storm, with 25-foot waves of water coming three, four, five blocks into their city. There's a bermed railroad track that goes through Gulfport, and that really is was saved the rest of the city from getting so much flooding. It got up to that berm, which acted as a buffer.
When we were flying over, we actually went to the Gulfport airport. When we were flying over Gulfport, you could see a lot of this decimation of their whole downtown and shoreline area. It was amazing; it was like a nuclear blast. There was nothing from the shore up to that railroad track. There was a partial house here and there. Mostly it was just pads of cement where houses had been and piles of rubble.
MORE EXPERIENCES OF THE AFTERMATH FROM HURRICANE? When we hit the ground and started driving around, the thing that struck most of us was the blue tarps on the roofs of the surviving houses. Also, there was so much stuff hanging from the trees. At first, we thought they were plastic sheets, but when we got up close they were carpets from homes and buildings that were hanging 30 feet in the air. They are all over the place. So each time we have gone down, we have measured the progress by whether there are any more carpets hanging in the trees.
It was simply overwhelming; you couldn't even take in the scope of it in some places because all that was left were pads of cement. You would stand in a block, not knowing what had been there beforehand.
THE DUTIES OF THE GROUP WHILE VOLUNTEERING IN MISSISSIPPI? We went down through the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance program. This is a standing organization that responds to disasters of any type around the globe. They went down to Mississippi and established a presence there. They got various churches to donate their sites for the effort.
We started off at the Handsboro Presbyterian Church, which was one of the primary sites. They had turned the church into a dormitory. The church itself had lost its steeple and had windows blown out and the roof was damaged. It not only became the center for volunteers, but actually housed the office of the PDA.
We went down there, not really knowing what kind of work we would do. We were going down to do whatever needed to be done and whatever we could do. We have done various things each time we have gone down. The emphasis is putting people back into homes.
In Mississippi alone, there are more than 10,000 families still living in FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) trailers. There are people that still have no homes. A lot of those folks are those that lost everything. They're now getting various grants and are involved in a replacement program. They're having volunteer Amish builders in Pennsylvania that are building homes, framing them out. Building them in two sections and putting them on trailers and sending them down to Mississippi. Volunteers have put up foundations and they have erected the two pieces. Other volunteers come in and put in walls and Sheetrock and electrical.
The last time we went down, we helped out a lady that we kinda adopted. She was further away from the water damage, but they had high winds and tornadoes that were a problem there. Her house was split into two by a tree that fell onto it. She is still living in a FEMA trailer.
She took what little insurance she had and a grant from FEMA, she went out and bought the hulk of a double-wide trailer that had needed a lot of work, but the frame was still good. She has slowly been trying to turn that into a house. Meanwhile, she's a long way off. When we got down there, she had just got the Sheetrocking done in her house. We painted the entire interior of the house. We hope when we go down this time, we can do more for her.
