photo by Steve VanGunda

Parkway Baptist Church member Akin Akinwale lines up cots Sunday afternoon in preparation for Gulf Coast evacuees fleeing Hurricane Gustav.

Evacuees find shelter, face uncertainty at home

By Mary Hood (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Monday, September 1, 2008

NATCHEZ — Candy Williams doesn’t know if she’ll have a home to go back to.

Sitting cross-legged on a small cot in Parkway Baptist Church the look of exhaustion on her youthful face is undeniable.

She left Maurepas, La., Sunday morning at 4:30 a.m. with her boyfriend Randy Meier and their 6-year-old daughter, Alexis.

“I hate these things, so we left,” she said.

Traveling without much traffic, they were almost to a safe haven when, 10 miles outside of Natchez, the car got a flat tire.

An angel of mercy, an unknown woman, swooped in and got them into town, fed them and pointed them in the direction of Parkway, the first Red Cross shelter to open in Adams County.

As Williams watched her daughter leap excitedly from cot to cot, the reality of uncertainty was etched in her face.

“If it’s anything like Katrina, (I’ll be here) two months,” she said.

Her trailer is flanked by a swamp on two sides and a river on the other with a one way road leading to it.

“It’s on an island,” she said.

It could take three weeks before water even receded enough to allow her back.

What’s worse is if her home is gone.

“I don’t know where I’ll go with (my daughter),” she said.

And being in a shelter isn’t the ideal situation at all.

“I’m not the type who likes big crowds,” she said.

As she pulled her daughters’ cot close enough to where it was touching her own, she worried about having her daughter around such large masses.

“I doubt I’ll get any sleep,” Williams said.

And there is another member of her family she’s worried about, too.

Her Jack Russell Terrier, Pepper, sat out by the car in a cage on the blacktop parking lot.

She couldn’t stand the thought of leaving behind Pepper, her “baby.”

“That would be like them telling me I would have to leave my daughter,” Williams said.

At the end of a long, exhausting day, Williams fretted over the weather in Natchez.

She said with a wry smile her family decided to come to Natchez because they heard it was safer. She now realizes that Natchez will be getting some strong storms too.

Even shelter volunteers tried to warn her.

“They were trying to send me north, but I’m not made of money,” she said.

So, curled up in an oversized T-shirt, Williams watches and waits as Gustav comes closer.

The shelter opened at 6 p.m. Sunday and people began to line up five minutes beforehand.

The trickle of people was slow and steady, but all Geraldine Robinson wanted to do was get inside.

“It’s hot,” she said fanning herself.

She had come up from Baton Rouge, fearful of the storm’s outcome, leaving at 4:30 a.m.

Trish Pomeroy, one of the shelter’s managers, said check-in was going well.

“Everything seems to be flowing smoothly,” Pomeroy said. “We’re taking care of the needs as they arise. We are glad we can be a service to the state and to our community.”

As of Sunday night, Community Chapel Church of God had opened as a shelter, as had Steckler Multipurpose Center.

Adams County Red Cross Chapter Manager Angie Brown had said previously that Steckler would be the last shelter to open so as to save it for locals.

“It opened because we had so many people in the parking lot waiting for it to open,” she said.

The shelter will admit 100 evacuees and save the rest of the 300-person capacity for locals.

The space will be needed when the mandatory evacuation of mobile homes goes into effect at noon today.