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Douglas Nurse Helps Katrina Survivors

ASPC-Douglas Occupational Health Nurse Robert Kappler is part of a Tucson-based team, which includes physicians, pharmacists, nurses, paramedics and support staff who are in New Orleans helping the victims of Katrina.

Tucsonans treat ills in La. town that has nearly nothing left
By Stephanie Innes
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

CHALMETTE, La. - They spent four days isolated from the outside world, their remote community reduced to piles of rubble, decay and broken hearts.

Now agencies from around the country, including a medical team of 30 Arizonans, are living side-by-side with residents of St. Bernard Parish, which was so devastated by Hurricane Katrina that 95 percent of the parish will be condemned, the sheriff estimated Saturday.

"It's as apocalyptic as you can imagine," Sheriff Jack Stephens said.

"There will be nothing to save in most of these houses. We're very worried about the psychological effects," said Alan Abadie, special assistant to both the St. Bernard Parish president and sheriff. "It's obliteration. One hundred percent of the homes were flooded."

The death toll in St. Bernard, a "big small town" of about 75,000 southeast of New Orleans, is at 100 and climbing.

As work crews do round-the-clock cleanup, the Arizona Disaster Medical Assistance Team, or DMAT, is seeing not only rashes, heat stroke and cuts, but also emotional trauma. The DMAT's clinic in an oil refinery here is now the parish's only working medical facility.

"Most of the people here have been here all their lives. They remember Hurricane Betsy 40 years ago," said the Rev. Allen Cunningham, senior pastor of Desert Dove Christian Church in Tucson's Midvale Park, who is part of the Arizona team's mental health staff.

Cunningham was scheduled to lead a service today for Arizona team members and members of the St. Bernard Parish Fire Department, who are all sharing living quarters on mats set up in the Bell South telephone company building. Also bunking with the Arizona team is Dr. Bryan Bertucci, a Chalmette doctor now working as the St. Bernard Parish coroner.

"His house was under 20 feet of water. His medical practice building is still underwater. He lost his home, business and 90 percent of his patients because they've either been killed or have been evacuated," Cunningham said of Bertucci. "Many have lost their homes, their way of life, their jobs are gone. He doesn't know how many are coming back."

In one adult-care home here, authorities found a reported 30 people dead. In another case, they found 22 people dead who had lashed themselves together. Locals and those helping with relief efforts say it will take years to rebuild. Cunningham is still in shock at the destruction.

"I saw on television what everyone else has seen, but I was not prepared," he said. "To see mile after mile after mile of houses underwater, total destruction, trees blown over - I was not prepared. As I've talked to people in Tucson, I've said think of Tucson from Valencia to Cortaro and between Mission to Craycroft under water, and that's just the parish I'm in right now."

The Arizona medical team, the only one of its kind in the state, formed in 2002 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Its commander is Tucsonan Fred Paavola, the former chief pharmacist for the U.S. Public Health Service.

The Tucson-based team includes physicians, pharmacists, nurses, paramedics and support staff and is part of the federal National Disaster Medical System. Twenty-six of the team members are from Tucson.

"We're foolish if we think there's not going to be other disasters of this magnitude that are going to strike the United States," said Dr. Kenneth V. Iserson, a University of Arizona professor of emergency medicine and one of three physicians on the Arizona team.

"They may be weather-related as many of them have been, it may be other things and we have to be prepared. The volunteer DMAT system gives us a structured way of responding."

In St. Bernard, the response has meant setting up a clinic in the Chalmette Refinery.

"The amazing thing to me is the self-reliance of the people here," said DMAT member Wendy Cartier, a nurse at Northwest Medical Center in Tucson. "I've met people who went four days with no food and no water and they survived. They have pulled together. They are just unbelievable."

The smell in St. Bernard grows worse each day as fecal matter, gas leaks and dead animals continue to fester in the water. Mold is forming on ruined homes.

Yet community residents like Jason Stage, 47, continue to work around-the-clock doing cleanup and vowing to rebuild.

"You could drive 30 minutes and be hunting and hook up a boat and in five minutes you could be fishing. What else could you want?" asked Stage, a maintenance superintendent before the hurricane. "Right now it's hell. Dead animals and dead people. If you would have saw it before - I had pride in it, now it's destroyed. But it will come back."

Similarly, Bob Pierce, 76, a retired furniture wholesaler, said that in spite of the mud and debris, he's coming back, too. Pierce was treated at the DMAT clinic Saturday after cutting his arm trying to use equipment for cleanup. "You don't run from it," he said.

Also vowing to rebuild are parish officials here, most of whom stayed in the government building in Chalmette during Katrina. Now several are living indefinitely on cots in offices in the Chalmette Refinery building where DMAT has its clinic.

"It was scary. I knew I was in trouble when I saw my unit, a brand new Ford Expedition, float by," said Larry Ingargiola, director of emergency preparedness and homeland security for the parish, recalling Katrina.

Ingargiola's home was destroyed but he says it's his job to stay and help his parish get back on its feet.

In spite of the optimism, stress remains a common ailment. Abadie gets tearful when he talks about losing family photos and his daughter's wedding video.

And like many others he is angry at the Federal Emergency Management Agency for taking at least four days - some say five - to get to the community and now for not getting housing assistance to evacuees quickly enough.

The DMAT team members, who have agreed to continue their stay in the New Orleans area for a month, say emotions and stress are running high.

"Part of the grief process is that it takes a little bit of time to begin accepting the reality of what has happened," Cunningham said.

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