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Shelters put myriad of personas together
Published September 26, 2005
BRENHAM — It can be difficult to share a birthday or name with a disaster.
But someone has to. After all, the miracle of life isn’t exempt, especially retroactively, from infamous dates like Sept. 11, Dec. 7 (bombing of Pearl Harbor) and Nov. 22 (John Kennedy’s assassination).
Still, knowing a blowhard would crash her party didn’t prevent Danyal Manning from putting on a smile. She’d be 32 in a couple hours and she would have a grand time, whether Hurricane Rita liked it or not.
“I’m bringin’ Rita with me!” she said with a laugh. “We’re gonna party with Rita.”
Manning, a pre-K teacher with Columbia-Brazoria ISD, took refuge with about 50 relatives at a Red Cross shelter in St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Brenham. Kesha Roberson, Manning’s sister and also from Bay City, said they’d have to throw her a big party on the shelter stage.
“Yeah, we’ll have a ‘family gone wild’ on stage,” Manning laughed.
Manning said they were in such a rush to get out and get safe that the only things she packed were pillows and precious papers, which put her husband, Jerry, in a bind. Procuring diamonds and vintage wine during a rushed evacuation simply wasn’t an option.
Early Saturday morning, after the Rita threat had subsided, Jerry Manning asked a few Brenham police officers if they knew any stores that were still open — otherwise he’d have to stick by them the rest of the day for protection from his wife.
But they knew and a quick trip to H-E-B yielded a half-dozen roses, a cake and two cards — one serious, one gag.
Red Cross volunteer Kelly Waterman, 19, said he worked at the Astrodome shelter with someone named Ophelia.
He said they’d tease her about if she’d be coming ashore soon and how she started to fizzle out.
Waterman was the voice on the Astrodome PA and said he took great pleasure in reuniting family members.
At St. Mary’s, Waterman was one of a handful of Red Cross volunteers who worked day in and day out to provide for the evacuees. Shrouded in a black coat, Waterman was often the first through the door to make the nightly rounds of the church.
The Red Cross staff was bolstered by volunteers from the congregation, including Alice Birkelbach, who often grabbed only three or four hours sleep in between daylong shifts, and volunteer bus drivers who had led the Columbia-Brazoria ISD convoy transporting Brazoria County residents.
Jean Ann Kersten, wife of driver Eddie, cleaned out her refrigerator and brought the food to the shelter, said Marisa Weisinger, C-BISD’s transportation director. William Gadrey, another volunteer bus driver, kept dozens of the children occupied by playing schoolyard games such as Red Light, Green Light.
Weisinger is considering plans for recognizing them before the C-BISD school board for their efforts.
“This is an amazing bunch of people,” she said. “We’ve heard reports some of the Brazosport (ISD) drivers had had it and they left and some of their police left, but that never even occurred to these people.”
Three volunteer BISD bus drivers were reported having left Thursday, but alternate drivers were found.
Keeping occupied
In the meanwhile, the about 150 evacuees at St. Mary’s passed time socializing, glued to the television or playing cards. The familiar knock-knock of blackjack mingled with the easy cacophony of the Channel 2 news, rustling in the kitchen and the occasional burst of laughter.
Gadrey joked with Dora Perez, 21, and Art Solis, 14, about setting up a miniature casino on the gymnasium stage.
Solis of Freeport passed the time listened to System of a Down and Slipknot on his mp3 player, and Cecil Money, 11, of Lake Jackson slowly circled the gymnasium’s interior, intently focused on avoiding the bats in a stage of “Shrek 2” on his Gameboy Advance.
Rayfield Roberson, 17, of Bay City played rounds of “Red Dead Revolver” on his 10-year-old cousin Jerry Manning’s PlayStation 2.
“It’s been really good (here),” Roberson said. “The cots are hard — but it’s definitely good to have somewhere to be.”
The ferocity of the cots was a regular complaint among evacuees, often followed by appreciation for being in the shelter. Charles Keese, St. Mary’s shelter director, remarked the Army green, metal-and-canvas cots are of World War II vintage.
Moving on
Though unpleasant, several evacuees remarked the whole experience was worthwhile as an eye-opener.
“I think I needed this as a reality check to see how good I’ve got it,” Jerry Manning said.
Especially because the folks he shacked up with were all from his wife’s side of the family. Not that it was a bad thing, he assured, but still, “I spent the weekend with in-laws, brother,” he said with a grin.
Others, like Kesha Roberson, said staying in the shelter was a miserable experience. She said she felt mistreated while at St. Mary’s.
“A lot of people think because we’re in a shelter that we’re poor, and that’s not true,” she said. “We’re going home and we ain’t going to look back.”
Donald Craigle of Lake Jackson, however, was ecstatic with the level of treatment he’d received in Brenham.
“I want to make sure people know everyone in Brenham was accommodating and couldn’t have been better. Red Cross, they’re tops,” he said. “I wanna thank all these volunteers from the bottom of my heart.”
For the Lipperts, who came from Lake Jackson, the trip to Brenham has unexpectedly become one-way.
Catherine Lippert drove with her husband, who chose not to be named, and 3 1/2-year-old son, Dakota, on a bubbled tire. They might’ve been the only ones on the road thankful for the rotten speeds of stop-and-go traffic; it allowed their vehicle to make the 11-hour drive.
The family lost their home because the rent check would be short after they needed money for the trip. Her husband lost his job after his boss wanted him to stay and board up windows, and was fired when he left to take care of his family. Then they were turned away for assistance by several local churches.
“Everybody shut their doors and turned their backs to us,” Lippert said, making the only reasonable solution to stay in Brenham, Lippert said.
“I understand (Katrina victims) needed help, but it’s real hard when your state won’t help somebody that’s actually from this state,” Lippert said. “You have to be literally taken out of your home by a natural disaster for somebody to help you.”
Lippert said her husband already has received two job offers by generous locals and is also perusing the classifieds of the Brenham Banner-Press for other potential opportunities.
“(Dakota) is confused. He doesn’t understand, he keeps asking us where home is. And I have to tell him, ‘Baby, right now home is here,’” Lippert said.
By Saturday morning, streaks of blue tore through the once ominous cloud cover. More than 100 of the evacuees had left St. Mary’s already and the church’s gymnasium looked inches away from returning to housing basketball games again.
Chris Robinson is a copy editor for The Facts. Contact him at (979) 237-0151.
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