A News Orleans neighborhood after Katrina

By Mitzie Stelte
Senior, Journalism

Her once beautiful and vibrant community in New Orleans is now dead.

All the houses are empty; every tree and flower is dead; garbage and storm debris are piled everywhere.

"No one will ever live in my home again," said department alumna Dr. Wendy Hajjar, now a faculty member of the Department of Film, Theatre and Communication Arts at University of New Orleans.

Hajjar is one of many alumnae from the department that have experienced the devastation of Hurricane Katrina firsthand and worked to help the Gulf Coast put itself back together.

Hurricane evacuation has become part of life to those who have their home in the hurricane strike zone, said Hajjar, who graduated in 1993 with a doctorate in mass communication. The case with Katrina was far different.

The hurricane left 80 percent of the homes in New Orleans under water.

Hajjar is now living in an apartment in uptown New Orleans, close to the Mississippi River in an area that did not flood. The habitable areas of the city are largely those areas inhabited in the 19th century before flood protection led people to build below the flood line.

Hajjar said that UNO sustained little damage and it responded well to the devastation. Measures were taken to contact the students, faculty and staff right away, and the university was the first to get back to business.

Hajjar is teaching two courses online, while other colleagues are offering courses "off-site" at satellite campuses and other locations. Other students were encouraged to enroll wherever they evacuated to and the university offered them tuition breaks and other incentives to continue their education.

In January the university expects to be back at half its numbers and the main campus should reopen.

Two other department alumnae, Jill Bode and Leann Wyrick-Morgan, traveled to Louisiana after Katrina to help survivors.

Bode graduated with a degree in advertising in 1998 and is currently president of Designed Write Public Relations Inc., located just outside of Indianapolis. She has been a volunteer for the Red Cross Rapid Response Team for almost 10 years.

The Red Cross Rapid Response Team is made up of highly-trained public relations professionals who work with the national media to disseminate information to victims of disasters.

Bode arrived in Biloxi, Miss., after Katrina and found the area to be completely devastated. She and her staff stayed in a hotel, but there was no power or running water, and no one could shower for days.

Bode witnessed people who had lost their homes, all their possessions and their prospects for a job. Many had family members who were either killed or injured. The situation could make anyone feel hopeless, she said.

The media focused a lot on the negative as far as the behavior of some of the survivors, said Bode. She, however, witnessed many people who were focused on helping each other, even though so many had lost everything.

Bode spent five days in Biloxi, came home for a few days and was then sent to Washington, D.C., where the headquarters for the Red Cross is located. Part of her job became what she called "rumor control," which consisted of her trying to combat the misinformation many people were receiving.

Bode prefers the time spent helping in the disaster area, compared to that spent in D.C.

"My passion is doing field work," said Bode. "It is so hands on and interactive. You get to see people and help directly, and that is pretty cool."

Leann Wyrick-Morgan

Wyrick-Morgan, who took a three-week leave from her position as assistant professor at Northern Illinois University, helped counsel survivors for the Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Services. In one day, she saw 160 adults and 30 children, not only survivors but Red Cross staffers and hurricane cleanup workers.

All the stories were touching, Wyrick-Morgan, B.A., 1991, told the New Orleans Times-Picayume. She said most survivors just wanted to share with someone: share photographs of their now destroyed homes, or tales of the lost dining room table that a family shared 65 years of Christmas dinners at, or stories of beloved pets that had to be left behind and perished. "It was hard for me to take home at night," she said.

Joye Gordon, who holds a doctorate in Public Affairs and Issue Management from Purdue, traveled in the hurricane aftermath to help future survivors.

Gordon, currently an associate professor of journalism and mass communication at Kansas State University, was part of a team funded by the National Science Foundation that traveled down to Louisiana in an RV to conduct interviews with people from seven southeastern Louisiana parishes where mandatory evacuation orders had been issued before Katrina hit.

Joye Gordon (left) interviews Louisiana residents outside a local Wal-mart in Luling, La.

The team wanted to know where people got their messages, and who they decided to trust in making their decisions. The project explores geographical, psychological and social factors related to compliance with mandatory hurricane evacuation orders.

Along with her team, Gordon collected, digitally recorded and employed a manual data collection system to gather accounts from the survivors. It was important that their accounts be gathered quickly after the hurricane occurred.

"Everyone has a reconstructive memory, and we had to get accounts and recollections before they changed," said Gordon.

Gordon, who has family ties to the area, said understanding these factors will help public authorities and agencies design more effective hurricane preparedness and evacuation programs.

Katrina may have occurred miles away from West Lafayette, Ind., but Purdue has close ties to the disaster because of these alumnae.