Case’s Stokes fellow survives Hurricane Katrina
Rebuilds life in the aftermath of the storm’s
destruction
November 28, 2005
| For more information: Susan Griffith 216-368-1004
Pamela Broom, a first-year Louis Stokes Fellow in Community Development at
Case Western Reserve University’s Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences,
knows what reconstructing a life and community in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina is like.
Since the hurricane hit August 29, Broom’s everyday existence has dramatically
changed.
The first-year Stokes Fellow is a community builder with Reconcile New Orleans,
Inc., which oversees the nonprofit Café Reconcile on Oretha Haley Boulevard
in the city’s Central City neighborhood.
Until Katrina visited the city, the café served up classic New Orleans
dishes like chicken and sausage gumbo, creamy white beans and po’boys,
while giving some of the city’s most at-risk teens and formerly incarcerated
youths the opportunity to learn new job skills and a new ways of living.
Now enrolled in graduate classes with a focus on rethinking communities through
social services in the special program at Case, Broom is living what she is
learning in reconstructing a life for herself and her family far from home.
“I know what it means to be displaced, to lose material possessions
and have only the strengths that you have within as the resources to make it,” she
said.
Some of the young people, who were training in culinary and waiting skills
and planning careers in New Orleans’ famous French Quarter and culturally
varied neighborhood restaurants, are like Broom and fled the city in advance
of the storm or in its aftermath.
And, like Broom many have not returned.
Broom was among the 100,000 people who left.
She was born in 1956 and lived in the city until she attended Spelman College
in Atlanta in 1974. She stayed in Atlanta for 16 years, but returned to New
Orleans and set up life in rental housing in the neighborhood bordering Tulane
University.
When Hurricane Katrina approached and she was told to evacuate, Broom and
her three daughters 16, 21 and 25 and 5-year-old granddaughter each packed
one carry bag of belongings and began driving a grueling 17-hour journey to
Atlanta. With amazing foresight, she also packed the materials she would need
for her first Case class on September 9.
First, Broom said what normally takes a 15-minute ride from her home to Uptown
to get onto the freeway stretched to 3.5 hours in heavy traffic. Then going
at a snail’s pace of 10 m.p.h., the family crossed Lake Pontchartrain
and then stopped and started all the way to Hattiesburg, Miss., and eventually
to a friend’s home in Atlanta.
In the days following, she saw a news report that showed scenes of her mother’s
neighborhood where she eyed her mother’s house engulfed in flood waters
up to the awnings and rooftop. Later she learned that her mother and other
relatives were safe.
As part of the Mandel School’s intensive weekend program, Broom comes
to Case one weekend each month to complete her masters of science in social
administration degree.
Stokes Fellows describe themselves as one big family. Broom learned the meaning
of that kinship as Charlene Montford, another first-year Stokes Fellow and
director of economic and community development for the city of West Palm Beach,
Fla., extended Broom the use of her recently vacated home in Durham, N.C.
Broom’s family is now among the estimated 279 people on the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) list that are living in Durham and among
the 7, 214 evacuees in that state. As part of her new life, Broom has begun
to volunteer through a local hurricane disaster relief taskforce to network
with evacuees.
“With few people, the work in my community must be refocused,” she
said.
She continues to communicate and to work with Reconcile New Orleans by phone
and laptop. But that connection may end shortly.
“I think I only have three weeks left on the job,” she told current
and alumni Stokes Fellows while meeting over lunch in Cleveland with the former
Congressman Louis Stokes, the program’s namesake.
“The café was not damaged, but everyone is scattered, with many
of their whereabouts unknown,” said Broom.
With no people, there is no work, she said.
Like other New Orleanians, the true devastation continues to surface in their
individual lives.
While the media report a city’s comeback, Broom says, “It’s
all fluff.”
Meanwhile, Broom is residing in Durham. Her daughter and granddaughter are
enrolled in school. Another daughter has found a job as a clerk at the local
Food Lion Supermarket.
While her New Orleans home did not flood, her daughter’s school remains
closed and the jobs are mostly gone. Besides her job, little is left to return
to in the city.
But Katrina’s devastation continues to pile up, as she describes what
is happening to her is happening to others.
Recently her landlord called and said he had new tenants for her home.
“He told me the new tenants would be willing to use my personal belongings
like my beds and appliances,” said Broom.
With difficulties returning to the city, her friends, employer and disaster
relief volunteers rescued her personal possessions and have stored them for
her.
“Hurricane Katrina has done a cleansing of the city in such an incredible
way,” said Broom.
She adds that with the knowledge she is learning about community building
through the Stokes Fellows program, she hopes to contribute and work in a leadership
capacity to rebuild lives in her home community and among those scattered around
the country.
The Louis Stokes Fellowship in Community Development is aiding with those
skills she needs. It is a program that enables African Americans and Hispanics
employed in community development to attend the Mandel School’s intensive
weekend program. Each fellow is supported with tuition scholarship and travel
stipend. The program attracts students from all over the country.
About Case Western Reserve University
Case is among the nation's leading research institutions. Founded in 1826
and shaped by the unique merger of the Case Institute of Technology and Western
Reserve University, Case is distinguished by its strengths in education, research,
service, and experiential learning. Located in Cleveland, Case offers nationally
recognized programs in the Arts and Sciences, Dental Medicine, Engineering,
Law, Management, Medicine, Nursing, and Social Work. http://www.case.edu.
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