'Arise and Rebuild' — Words That Have Brought Order to Phoenix, La.
1 September 2006
Resurrecting a rural community on the banks of the Mississippi River.
The bed he shares with his wife of 30 years—Patricia Ann—in a cubby of their FEMA trailer wasn’t designed for men like him. His six-foot-four-inch frame is too long, and his feet poke out.
But he’s not complaining. Nor is his wife—not about their cramped living quarters, not about their 15-hour work days, not even about the house they lost when Katrina swallowed the small town of Phoenix, Louisiana, on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish.
There’s no time for complaining: Phoenix is rising again.
On the anniversary of that terrible storm, a little white church propped on cinder blocks at the base of a massive levee in Phoenix, an African-American community, is proof of what’s possible in the face of utter devastation. It’s the Zion Travelers Baptist Church, where the Thomases, the Rev. Tyronne Edwards, and a gang of determined parishioners—with help from Oxfam America—are rebuilding a rural community.
“I won’t leave for nothin’,” said Dymond.
On the evening of the anniversary, August 29, they filled their church—the only one left of the four that had stood on the lower east bank before the storm—to sing, give thanks, and recharge their spirits for all the work that still lies ahead. Every seat among the six plain wooden pews was taken. Every parishioner wore a T-shirt proclaiming “Let us Arise and Rebuild.” A line from the Bible, Nehemiah 2:18, the words are a call to action that have inspired them since the beginning.
“We need to celebrate right here in Phoenix, Plaquemines Parish, because God has been good,” Rev. Tyronne said from the pulpit, his voice hoarse from a day of people-packed anniversary activities, but his face beaming. “This time last year, maybe we would have been in shelters or stacked up with others, but look at us now.”
Parishioners Take Charge
Churches like Zion Travelers are at the core of much of the recovery on the Gulf Coast where reconstruction has crept along at a painfully slow pace and billions of dollars in federal assistance are bypassing poor communities that need it most, including those along the east bank where there are pockets of acute poverty. Parishioners at Zion Travelers aren’t holding their breath waiting for that help. They’re taking charge—even if only 106 families out of the original 600 in Phoenix have returned.
Water in their church rose nearly to the ceiling, but the only reminder of that now is a faint line crossing a speaker mounted near the top. The muck and debris left by the flood are long gone, replaced by new fixtures, walls, ceiling, and floor. Serenity and order pervade inside and out, where freshly trimmed lawns of the small community around the church keep memories of the recent chaos at bay.
“It’s like a beacon,” said Davida Finger, Oxfam America’s state coordinator in Louisiana, as she walked around the grounds and through the storage areas packed with neatly folded clothing, cleaning products, and tools to share with the community.
At the heart of this order, is Patricia Ann D. Thomas, known to everyone as Ann. Rev. Tyronne’s right-hand woman, she is the program manager for the Zion Travelers Cooperative Center, a non-profit organization born last winter to help meet the needs of the storm-ravaged area. Besides distributing clothes, food, and cleaning supplies, the center this summer ran a six-week culture camp for area children, turning the church into a virtual airplane to transport them to different countries around the world with homemade passports.
Tool Lending Library
The cooperative center also launched a tool lending library for the whole community. Housed in a metal container the size of a FEMA trailer, tools for loan include three mowers, a generator, a pressure washer for bleaching houses, a collection of chainsaws and skill saws, stacks of tarps and ice chests, weed whackers, and ladders. Folks are allowed to check out items for up to three days at a stretch—and longer, if they have a good excuse and clear the extension with Ann.
Small, smiling, and gracious, she runs a tight ship. She has to—if the tools are going to get returned and be available for the next person who needs them. Ann requires each borrower to sign a loan agreement. She records their phone numbers and driver’s license numbers. And if the tools don’t show up on the designated day, Ann’s on the phone tracking the borrower down.
She has good reason to hunger for order in the midst of chaos: She lived through Hurricane Betsy in 1965.
“I remember a truck backing up and pouring stuff on the floor,” she said, “and you pawing for stuff and six to seven people wanting the same thing.”
She won’t abide such confusion again.
A Sense of Security
With orderliness comes a sense of security, and that’s what people crave in the aftermath of a disaster that has stripped them of everything they own. The Zion Travelers Cooperative knows how to deliver on that score.
Between January and April, it boasted the only working public toilet on the east bank—stationed discreetly behind a blue plastic tarp in a storage trailer. A cluster of showers—rigged with water piped from the church—continues to provide relief for folks working up a sweat as they help the community rebuild. A steady stream of volunteers relying on donated materials has helped Phoenix make its comeback.
On the morning of the anniversary, Ann switched on the TV news and the images that flooded the screen left her unsettled. It was footage from a year ago—water and destruction—and she felt the misery of those days lap at her resolve to put them behind her.
“It kind of made me feel down,” she said. “If you’re going to be strong in your faith, you have to pick up and move on.”
She did—just as she has every morning.
“That’s what it’s about,” said Ann. “Rebuilding.”
