The Middlebury Campus

Issue date: 3/30/06 Section: Features

A group of Middlebury student volunteers take a break at a New Orleans playground to pose for a picture.

Over spring break, a number of energetic Middlebury volunteer groups headed to New Orleans to see the damage incurred by Hurricane Katrina and join the thousands of college students who chose to spend their vacations rebuilding towns in the Gulf Coast.

Many curious and concerned students from Middlebury set off for New Orleans and Biloxi, Mississippi to see the problem firsthand. Said Caitlin Littlefield '07.5, "It wasn't until I was actually standing in someone's house, decked out in a body suit and respirator and goggles, tearing their lives apart and tossing things on the front lawn to be picked up as garbage that all the destruction became real."

The students returned with unsettling recollections of their first days there. The initial exposure to the disaster areas produced powerful and poignant reactions. "Upon first driving through the devastated areas, I was most shocked at how deserted they were," said Abigail Mitchell '06. "It was like visiting a ghost town. The only movement to catch my eye was the scampering of an underfed cat."

Rachel Durfee '06 explained how her trip to Biloxi helped her to grasp the scope of the devastation. "After an entire day of seeing complete destruction everywhere you look, I started to understand just how much had been damaged and how much there was to rebuild," she said. "The sight that really shocked me was driving by a cemetery which had been entirely wrecked. Tombstones were smashed and up heaved everywhere. It was like the dead had woken up and disturbed everything."

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005. The storm was a Category 4 with winds moving at up to 145 miles per hour. Many of the residents have been accustomed to hurricanes their entire lives and so did not evacuate their homes when the storm headed towards the city. The storm passed over the eastern part of the city, sparing the downtown and hit eastern neighborhoods of New Orleans as well as towns along the Louisiana-Mississippi state line.

More critical than the storm itself, however, were the dual breaches in the massive 17th Street and London Avenue canals. This damage caused rapid and severe flooding that caught residents off guard just when they thought that the worst of the storm had passed. New Orleans residents had no warning about the levees giving way. As Mitchell described, "When cleaning out one of the houses, it felt as if the residents had just disappeared mid-life - the dirty dishes sat waiting in the sink - an outfit laid out neatly on the bed."

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