Reuniting lost families
Red Cross, 28 states to reconnect New Orleans hurricane evacuees
HOUSTON -- Federal officials said yesterday a new program to reunite families separated during the evacuation of New Orleans would be implemented through the American Red Cross and the 28 states, including Massachusetts, that have taken in people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
The hurricane has scattered thousands of low-income families from the Gulf Coast across the country, creating an unanticipated need for financial assistance to pay for travel to reunite separated relatives. But government and private relief agencies, unaccustomed to providing such aid after natural disasters, have not been paying for travel to bring separated family members together.
Many of the separations occurred in part because of the chaotic evacuation of those who stayed behind in New Orleans during the storm. Some family members were airlifted to cities around the country, while others were unexpectedly divided on chartered buses whose destinations differed and sometimes were not disclosed to passengers in advance.
The reunification program, which President Bush announced in his televised speech from New Orleans on Thursday night, will involve the Red Cross or the states initially paying for the travel and later being reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Because the travel payments have not begun yet, there was some confusion yesterday on an existing Red Cross hotline whose number Bush gave out. A FEMA spokeswoman said the program would start soon.
''It's just being implemented right now. The states are all working on how they will be able to do this," said Natalie Rule, the spokeswoman. ''The states will be working with individual family members trying to reconnect with family in another state or even back home. They will pay for that travel and make travel arrangements and they will submit the cost to FEMA."
Bush had identified the family separations as a problem in his speech. ''Many families were separated during the evacuation, and we are working to help you reunite," he said, giving out a Red Cross hotline number twice. ''We will work to bring your family back together, and pay for your travel to reach them."
The ability to travel where they need to, particularly in a family emergency, is taken for granted in financially secure families, but not in low-income families like Wanda Price's.
Before Katrina struck, most members of Price's extended family lived within blocks of one another in New Orleans, and hardly a week passed without some relatives gathering to share a big pot of gumbo or celebrate a cousin's birthday. The storm forced family members to evacuate to six cities in Texas, Louisiana, and Illinois.
The family has decided that Houston, where 17 of Price's relatives were evacuated to large shelters, is the place they would like everyone to reunite temporarily. But they cannot afford to pay travel costs for a dozen or more relatives stranded in Crystal Springs and Lafayette in Louisiana, Dallas and Austin in Texas, and Chicago.
''We don't want to split up anymore," said Price, 43. ''We want to stick together as best as we can."
Before the new federal program, FEMA and the Red Cross created Internet searches and toll-free hotlines to assist evacuees in searching for missing relatives, and the state of Texas and
''There has never been a situation in our history that so quickly and suddenly separated families and with so little information readily available," said Heather Murphy, a spokeswoman for The Find Family National Call Center, a FEMA hotline.
Evacuees have not rushed to snap up the free airline tickets out of Houston because the city 350 miles from New Orleans appears to be the preferred place to reunite, it has a large population of displaced Louisianans, and it is seen as being close to their home city, culturally. The metropolitan area has taken in an estimated 150,000 evacuees, and officials estimate Texas has a total of 230,000. About 1,100 displaced Louisianians have accepted the tickets from Continental, according to an airline representative.
Houston officials point to the steep drop in the number of evacuees staying in the four largest shelters -- from 27,000 on Sept. 4 to about 3,000 this week -- as evidence that many displaced families had been finding the means to reunite on their own. Officials believe those shelters could be empty by next week.
Daniel Monti, a sociology professor at Boston University, said being separated from close family members can be devastating during a disaster, but he said Americans have long migrated in large numbers to various parts of the country and world, sometimes never to see family again. Katrina resulted in an immediate ''forced migration," he said.
''At least they will know where their loved ones are," said Monti. ''That doesn't mean it won't be painful, and they won't miss each other, but it will be a soothing factor in all of this."
Murphy said earlier this week that some families had gotten unexpected help from relief organizations, strangers, and churches in reconnecting with relatives.
Brandon Landry, for instance, said his family believed he had died in the storm. After Katrina struck, Landry, 31, made it to the Superdome, and then was bused to a town in Texas whose name he does not even remember. By checking a Red Cross database, he later discovered that relatives were in Houston. A family there agreed to drive five hours to pick up Landry, his girlfriend, and his brother. Eventually, 22 relatives made it to the city, where they are living together in a house that the same family has let them use.
In other families, members said they worried that they might never again live in the same city as their close relatives. Pam Bailey, 43, wound up in Houston with a teenage nephew and her mother after they were airlifted from her home in New Orleans and then put on a bus. A brother was taken in by friends in Mississippi, and plans to stay there. One sister in rural Louisiana is trying to get to Houston, and another who tried to ride out the storm in New Orleans has not been heard from.
''I feel lost," said Bailey's mother, Dorothy Portway, 67. Then she sounded a note of resignation: ''If God chose for us to be separated like we are, that's the way it will be."
Families say the mutual support they get from being together would help members make the necessary transitions to a new life. ''We just all have to stay together in one place until we can all get on our feet," said Wanda Price's mother, Ethel Price, 63.
After 13 hours of waiting outside the Superdome, Wanda, her brother, and other relatives were hustled on different buses bound to unknown destinations. ''The bus driver threw my brother's bag on another bus. When we tried to object, he said, 'You can go or stay!' " she recalled.
Her brother was bused to Dallas. Price, who thought she was going to Houston, ended up in Mississippi. After about a week, she found a way to Houston, where her family has decided to gather. The interstate busing, Ethel Price lamented, has ''split up my family."
