18 On Tap Winter 2006

emember Hurricane Dennis? If not,don’t feel bad. Dennis hit Florida in

early July, causing more than $1 billion indamages, the first of four major hurricanesto strike the U.S. coast last year. Nextcame the catastrophic Katrina in August,and memories of previous hurricanes werewashed away in the ensuing tragedy.

Katrina and 12 other hurricanes roaredthrough the tropical waters off our south-ern coast in 2005. Florida, Texas, Alabama,Mississippi, and Louisiana lost homes andbusinesses by the thousands. More than3,000 people died, 1,400 of them residentsof the U.S. And, as of this writing, approx-imately 6,500 people were still missing. Inthe worst hurricane season since 1928,Katrina caused the most destruction anddeath.

Damages from Katrina have been esti-mated at more than $100 billion in theGulf coast states. The destruction of NewOrleans and Mississippi’s coastal gamblingtowns filled the news. But hundreds ofsmall communities, out of the spotlight,were affected, devastatingly so.

Cleanup from Katrina had hardly begunwhen the next monster storm, Rita,brewed in the Gulf. After the chaos anddevastation caused by Katrina, people fledthe coast in droves. When Rita was down-graded to a category three and hit the U.S.in a predominantly rural area, the countrybreathed a collective sigh of relief.Compared to Katrina, Rita’s impact seemedsmall. But the people who survived its120-mile-per-hour winds have a differentview of the severity.

Photo courtesy of Chris Metzgar

R

By Michelle MooreOn Tap Associate Editor

www.nesc.wvu.edu 19

The storm hit the western partof Louisiana, slamming into thebayous, forests, and small townsalong the coast. Damage reacheda hundred miles inland, destroyingCajun communities far up into theswamps. Lives were irreversiblychanged; towns were destroyed;and the people who lived thereexperienced the same pain andanguish as Katrina survivors.

Like towns in the rest of thestorm-ravaged Gulf states, theseLouisiana folks face the samestruggle to rebuild what was leftof their homes, their lives, andtheir communities. Unfortunately,they have to do it without thefocused attention of the rest ofthe country, their hardships tak-ing a backseat to the needs ofthe more populated urban cen-ters. But, true to the determinednature of the men and womenwho settled this country, theycontinue, piece by piece, puttingtheir world back together.

Louisiana: Devastation Eastand West

Pat Credeur, executive directorof the Louisiana Rural WaterAssociation (LRWA), coordinatedefforts to help community watersystems in his state followingboth hurricanes. He said thatwhen Katrina hit, LRWA set uptheir command center inLivingston Parish, northeast ofBaton Rouge, in the local fair-ground’s parking lot. Credeurrented a trailer and rounded up20 cots for the staff.

“I used my motor home as anoffice and put all the staff sleepingin the trailer,” Credeur says.“Before we knew it, EPA movedin; department of health moved

in; FEMA moved in; insuranceadjusters moved in. The fair-ground became a collection centerfor clothes, water, generators. Youname it, it came in there.

“One night we went to bed,there was not an 18-wheeler inthe yard,” he continues. “Wewoke up the next morning, andthere were 62 18-wheelers therewith equipment, clothes, polytanks to put potable water in.”

The first thing LRWA did wasto organize teams in each waterdistrict, Credeur said. Crews ofrural water circuit riders came infrom many states to help—Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas,Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia,Pennsylvania, Virginia, and NewYork, to name a few.

“We made up teams, and weput these teams in each one ofthese communities,” Credeur says.“We helped the operators fromone end of town to the other toshut off valves, shut off meters,because homes weren’t thereanymore.”

They got water flowing, butinitially, they weren’t concernedabout getting it to a potable state.Most important was getting theleaks fixed and the lines pressur-ized. Credeur says they fixedhundreds of leaks in each town.Then, once the distribution sys-tems were contained, the lineshad to be disinfected.

“We started super chlorinatingthese systems,” he says. “Weflushed and flushed and flushedand flushed. We did Bac-T sam-ples, and we even took somechemical analysis on some of the

systems because they were inun-dated by storm surge water.”

Getting water flowing was theprimary goal. Homes and otherstructures that withstood the hur-ricanes, but were flooded, had“four, five, six inches of marshmud in them,” Credeur says, “Allthat had to be washed out.”

Cameron Parish Wiped OutCameron Parish sits on the coast

of Louisiana, just east of the Texasborder. Rita hit it nearly dead on.Entire towns disappeared, andpeople there lost everything, sameas the folks in the eastern part ofthe state did from Katrina’s wrath.Much of the telephone communi-cation system was still out by thetime of this On Tap issue’s publi-cation deadline.

“Communication down there isstill bad,” Credeur says. “WhenI’m down in the lower part ofCameron Parish, I usually have toclimb up on a ground storagetank to get clearance to make thephones work. That’s what we’vebeen going through.”

No phones, no electricity, nowater, and for many, no shelter.Credeur says the operators inCameron Parish “have really hadit tough, losing their homes; theirfamilies have been evacuated toother states. Some of them havenot seen them in weeks. We’vebrought clothes into some ofthese operators, because they hadno clothes left. Nothing. Youknow, you’re at your home thismorning, and you go back thenext morning and it’s gone.”

A "hurricane-proof" house located near the coastwithstood the winds and flooding. Its structure isintact, but the interior was destroyed.Photo by Chris Metzgar.

20 On Tap Winter 2006

The week after Rita struck thecoast, some of the LRWA teamtraveled to a water plant inCameron Parish to offer their help.There hadn’t been electricity orphones for a week by this time.

“When we drove up theMonday morning after Rita hit toCameron Parish number nine and10,” Credeur says, “these twooperators were standing in frontof their water plant, which wasjust tore up. I can’t even explainto you their facial expressions.One of them said, ‘Thank God,Rural Water is here.’ Both Rustyand Dennis Sternberg fromArkansas got a hug from thesetwo guys. They just neededsomebody to hang on to andvent. After that, it was over with,and it was work.”

FEMA brought trailers into thearea so that the utility workers hada place to stay. Credeur said thatsome of them had been having todrive an hour and a half afterworking until nine or 10 o’clock atnight to find a place to sleep.

“From the first day we walkedin, although they had tears intheir eyes because they had nohomes, these operators wereready to work with us to get theirwater systems back running. Andwe’ve been doing it ever since,”says Credeur.

Alabama Got Slammed Dauphin Island, a breezy, semi-

tropical paradise, sits about threemiles off the coast of Alabama.It’s sort of stuck out there, a long,thin barrier island, just daring ahurricane to blow its laid-backbeach town off the map.

Jeff Caldwell, manager forDauphin Island Water andWastewater Department, knowsabout hurricanes. When Katrinacrashed in, he was watching theaction from the safety of Mobile,far enough inland to feel secure.With water on both sides of yourtown, people there take hurricanewarnings very seriously.

When a hurricane threatens,the water system gets prepared,Caldwell says. They lay out theevacuation plan, and then whenthey return to the island, they’vegot a plan for re-entry.

“When they have a mandatoryevacuation of the west end, weshut the valves off,” he says,“because the water surging startsbreaking water lines to the houses.So we shut it off to keep from los-ing what water we’ve got.”

The water system has two stor-age tanks, each holding a milliongallons. Caldwell says they valveone of those tanks off so theydon’t use any water from it. Thenthey leave the transfer pumps on,and the generators are turned offso they don’t come on automati-

cally, “because there’s no sensein pumping water out on theground.”

Upon re-entry to the island,Caldwell says, they’ve got certainareas they valve off, making iteasier to get the central, higherpart of the island’s water andsewer systems back to normal.

The populated section ofDauphin Island runs about sevenmiles east to west, and the widestpoint is two miles, at most. Itspopulation swells from 2,400 toaround 10,000 in the summer.

The island lost approximately300 houses in Katrina’s fury. Mostof the damage occurred on thewest end, which also happens tobe where most of the beachhouses are. Caldwell says thatabout a three-miles stretch ofland suffered devastation due tothe storm surge. Water mainsburied three feet deep werewashed out of the ground.

“There were areas where thewater would go under the roadand swirl,” he says. “It dug six- toeight-foot trenches and washedout sections of main. Further outon the west end, there werewater mains laying, just scatteredall around. Basically, we’re hav-ing to build the water mains froma certain point on.”

Caldwell says the town’s twowater plants came through thehurricane with minimal damage,

A camper blew into this waterway andsunk near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.Photo by Chris Metzgar

www.nesc.wvu.edu 21

although electricity was off forabout a month. One of the treat-ment plants uses reverse osmosis(RO), and they were able tooperate it using a generator.

As a consequence of damageto housing, water usage droppedsubstantially. So although the sys-tem was runnning way belowcapacity, the utility was able tokeep up. Caldwell says the ROplant produces about 230,000 gal-lons per day.

The second treatment plant isfed by a series of shallow wells,and while the plant doesn’t usepumps to bring the water to thesurface, they needed a generatorto pump the water up to the ele-vated tower. The maintenancecrew had that part of the systemup and working fine within a fewdays after Katrina.

But out at the other end of theisland, things were far from fine.Most of the beach houses weredestroyed. Water eroded thebeaches and scoured the sandfrom beneath everything. Asidefrom water lines being damaged,a 100,000-gallon tank was under-mined. Caldwell says that even

though they had pilingsdriven 10 feet down,the ground washed outunder the tank andtipped it over about30 degrees. He saidthe purpose of thetank was to augmentthe supply from thesingle, six-inchmain feeding thebeach houses.Because all thedistribution lineswere torn up andso many of thehouses weregone, Caldwellsays they’re goingto change thedistribution sys-tem to the westend. The boostertank is going tobe eliminated, andtwo eight-inchmains are beinginstalled instead.All of this work isgoing to take a longtime and a lot ofmoney.

Dauphin Island’s waterand wastewater departmentemploys six field staff, and at thiswriting, they were seriously over-worked. Caldwell says theyreceived aid from many sources,including Alabama Rural Water(ARWA), who helped find a gen-erator to run the RO water plant.Even though they had some gen-erators for other purposes, theyalso had to rent some, becausethe power was off for so long.

“Our guys have really put in alot of overtime during the timethe power was off,” he observes,“because we had to maintainthose generators and fuel them.Seems like they break down alot, so we had to stay with them.”

Hurricane Katrina came uponDauphin Island at a tough timefor the water department.Caldwell said that they no longerhad the generator that they usedfollowing Hurricane Ivan lastyear. It didn’t run very well then,after having gotten flooded, but,Caldwell says they “doctored it

along.” The town also didn’t getFEMA money from Ivan until twoweeks or so before Katrina hit, sothey didn’t have time to replacethe generator before they lostpower from the storm. The gen-erator ARWA helped them getwas a good break.

Costs for repairs have Caldwellworried. “FEMA picks up 75 per-cent of the expenses and thestate comes by and picks up 10percent,” he says. “That’s our taxmoney. That’s not anything spe-cial, although it seems likethey’ve spent a lot here on thecoast recently. But even still, wehave to come up with 15 percent,which is tough for us. When wehave a million dollars worth ofrepairs, you know, that’s$150,000, and that hits prettyhard. But we’ve been able tohandle that in the past. We’retalking about $5 or $6 million, sothat’s really going to hurt.”

A homemade sign informs residents of thisneighborhood that their drinking water supply,once contaminated, is safe to drink.Photo by Win Henderson/FEMA

More than debris floated into this yard. This Califorinasea lion washed in from the Marine Life Oceanariumin Gulfport, more than three miles away.Photo by Michael C. Mulligan

22 On Tap Winter 2006

Dauphin Island’s utilities aremaking good progress with theirrepairs, but ‘there’s still a lotgoing on and there will be for along time for us,” Caldwell says.“If we continue to repair thewater and sewer all the way outto the west end of the island, it’sprobably going to be anothereight months.”

Mississippi Coast NearlyWashed Away

When Katrina hit theMississippi coast on MondayAugust 29, 2005, it slammed ontoshore, leveling beach communi-ties such as Waveland, Bay St.Louis, Gulfport, and Biloxi. Thestorm surge reached more than30 feet in some places and,depending on who you talk to,lasted for an hour or so to mostof the day.

Mississippi Rural Water’s(MsRWA) staff was scheduled fora hurricane training relief pro-gram the next week, but theynever made it. Instead, they livedthe nightmare they were hopingto prepare for. One thing every-one interviewed for this articlesaid over and over was that therewas absolutely no way theycould ever have prepared for themassive destruction wrought bythe hurricane season of 2005.

Three circuit riders withMsRWA described what they’dseen and experienced whileworking to help get their state’scommunity water systems run-ning. Kirby Mayfield, TomAbernathy, and Joey Vaughnspoke of canvassing the stateimmediately after Katrina hit, dis-covering which water systemsneeded help and then coordinat-ing crews to help them get thewater systems repaired.

“We started there in the officeon the second day and went twoto a vehicle,” Abernathy says.“We just swept the state until wegot to the coast, locating genera-tors, finding out what the needswere.”

The circuit riders worked allday and drove many miles backto their command center inRaymond, Mississippi, everynight. Eventually, MsRWA movedtheir headquarters further southto Perry County, closer to theheavily damaged areas, but still75 miles from the coast.Assistance groups from Floridaand elsewhere had joined theirefforts by then, and Abernathysaid that they’d discuss the fol-lowing day’s assignments eachnight at their headquarters.

“Every night we’d sit aroundthe campfire, meeting and dis-cussing whatever the new needswere and where this crew needsto go and that crew and giveeverybody their assignments forthe next day,” he recalls. “Thatworked really good.”

As much as two-thirds ofMississippi had significant dam-age, Abernathy says. He hadbeen on vacation when Katrinahit and had to drive south fromTennessee. He began to seedowned trees and other winddamage 400 miles inland.

The wind and storm knockedphone lines and cell phone tow-ers offline, so there was no wayto communicate anywhere, letalone with the hardest hit parts ofthe state. Of course not onlyphone service, but electricity wasout over much of the state. Thepower outages had water systemsscrambling to find generators.

“I’d say 85 percent of them[systems] were without electricitythat first two or three days,”Abernathy says. “We had our staffat the office that were calling,locating generators. Then theywere coordinating with us findingout who needs what, and gettingthe generators to them. We justworked our way south. As theygot power to the north, they’dsay, ‘I’ve got power, who needsthis generator now?’”

According to Abernathy, thecrews were constantly in contactwith the MsRWA office, theircommand center. “All of us werecalling in saying, this systemneeds this and this system needsthat, this system needs a vacuumtruck, this system needs a crew.With all the tree damage, ituprooted so many water lines.That was a big issue, getting allthe water lines repaired so thepumps wouldn’t just be running24 hours.”

Once the generators had waterpumps operating, they had to befueled, which proved to be achallenge.

“We had lots of systems withgenerators up and running,”Mayfield says. “But they still hadthe problem that they couldn’tget a tank of diesel when theywere out. We got some trucks in,and we were hauling diesel tothem all, just making the rounds,filling them up.”

Equipment was destroyed,facilities were leveled, and wellswere contaminated. Volunteerscame from Mississippi, surround-ing states, and from rural waterassociations and volunteer groupsfrom all parts of the U.S. to help.

Sixty-plus miles inland and four months afterKatrina, blue tarps on roofs remain a commonsight. Photo by Chris Metzgar

www.nesc.wvu.edu 23

Municipal systems from undam-aged parts of Mississippi sentcrews.

“Booneville, Olive Branch,Pontotoc, West Point, Starkville,Tupelo, and Oxford—all we hadto do was to pick up the phoneand call somebody that we knewand dealt with on a daily basis,”says Abernathy. “We’d call ‘em,talk to ‘em, and they’d say, ‘whatdo we need to do?’ We’d say, youneed to bring a bed roll, a limitedamount of groceries, and comeon.”

Disappointments were many aswell as successes. Mayfield,Abernathy, and Vaughn spoke ofseveral communities that wereconfident they would receivepromised FEMA-delivered genera-tors. But the scale of the stormwas so overwhelming, the federalagency couldn’t keep up with theneeds. After days of waiting forequipment that never appeared,these facility employees finallyresorted to requesting help fromneighboring towns.

One system close to KirbyMayfield’s home had been with-out water for five days whenMsRWA came to see what thetown needed. The rural water

guys had a generator that theycould lend the utility that night,saying that it was going to besent back home if they didn’tspeak up. But the operator saidthat FEMA was bringing a genera-tor that they could use and thenkeep after the emergency wasover with. A few more dayspassed, and that system’s opera-tor called back saying theyneeded help; no generator hadarrived.

The red tape of dealing withgovernment services and FEMAreimbursement got undersome people’s skin. Ruralwater and town folks whowere used to taking care ofthemselves were moreinclined to get moving torestore water service withwhatever they had at handrather than to wait to beassigned a number thenwait some more for officialapproval. For the mostpart, though, the MsRWAfellows said that peoplejust wanted to help andhad no concern for pay-ment.

“All these people that wehad, they came down therenot expecting any reim-bursement in any way,”Abernathy says. “I doubt if

they’ll ever get it. And, they’restill coming. Right now, today,we’ve got five or six municipalsand other big water associationsjust sitting on the radio. All wegot to do is call them and say, gohere and be here at this time andbe prepared to stay a week orwhatever.”

Who could prepare for this?The recovery teams found

storm damage growing moreextensive closer to the coast. Andon the coast, the devastation was

Water damage to homes promotesdangerous mold growth, making thehouses uninhabitable and requiringcostly mold remediation. Photo/collageby Chris Metzgar

24 On Tap Winter 2006

indescribable. In someplaces, nothing was left.Whole communities weregone. Buddy Zimmerman,assistant public worksdirector for Bay St. Louis,Mississippi, rode out thestorm at his house withhis extended family andall of their pets.Zimmerman thought hisplace would be safe; helives a couple of milesinland from the coast.Besides, he was worriedfor some of the olderpeople who live aroundhis place who he knewwould never leave.

Zimmerman built hishouse on land 25 feetabove sea level, thinkingthat was plenty highenough to avoid flooding.He was wrong. The stormsurge swept over Bay St.Louis and neighboringWaveland, covering bothtowns with 30 feet ofwater. On top of thesurge, he said, there werewaves crashing 15 to 18feet above that onto thestructures, which demol-ished everything.

Whole sections of BaySt. Louis were flattened.“We’ve lost between 40and 50 percent of all thehomes in Bay St. Louis,”Zimmerman says. “In themiddle of town, we havea high spot and that’s thearea that didn’t get muchwater damage. Our publicworks department yardand the police departmentand fire department wereall high and dry, justbarely. There was waterin the yard, but it neverdid get up on the slabs.”

The adjacent towns ofWaveland and PassChristian had even worsedamage, Zimmermanobserves, because they “don’thave the high spot in the middleof town like we do, and they aredevastated. The worst areas ofour town look like their whole

town. It looks like an atomicbomb hit it.”

The Bay St. Louis public worksoffice may not have been dam-aged by floodwater, but the windtore off most of the slate roof.

The rain poured in. They lostcomputers, all the informa-tion stored on thecomputers, many files andas-built drawings. Aboutevery one of the publicfacilities had some degree ofdamage, roof damage beingmost abundant.

After the storm stopped,Zimmerman said the devas-tation was massive.Movement about town wasimpossible. But with his rolein the public works depart-ment, he had to get outthere to assess damage tothe public utilities. Gas leakswere his first concern. In themiddle of the storm he hadtried to make his way out,but the high winds kept himat home. He said that assoon as the winds droppeddown to around 100 milesper hour, he jumped into adump truck to head outagain to try to get the gassystem turned off.

“I couldn’t get out of sightof my home,” he says. “Itried eight different ways . .. trees, power lines, powerpoles, electric cables,houses, debris, you name it,it was out there. There wasa business that had a bigstorage shed, a big woodframed building about ahundred feet long. It waslaying across Highway 90.Sixty to 70 percent of thepower poles were down onthe ground, not to mentionthe trees and stuff that weredown.

“I finally tried to goaround some power lines,and when I tried to goaround, the truck hit one ofthe limbs,” Zimmerman says.“When it did, the whole treefell on top of the truck.”

He eventually contacted awork crew that was about a

mile away that had a backhoe, achainsaw, and a couple of pickuptrucks. “It took them two hours toget me, to go one mile took themtwo hours. That’s how bad thedebris was on the main highway.”

HELPIs Still Needed

Recovery efforts continue in the worstdamaged areas of the Gulf States andmay go on for months, if not years. Hereare some organizations that are accept-ing donations:

American Red Cross(800) HELP-NOW www.redcross.org

Alabama Governor’s EmergencyRelief Fund(877) 273-5018www.servealabama.gov

Bush-Clinton Katrina Fundwww.bushclintonkatrinafund.org

Louisiana Disaster RecoveryFoundation(877) HELPLA1www.louisianahelp.org

Mississippi Hurricane RecoveryFund(866) 230-8903www.mississippirecovery.com

Network for Goodwww.networkforgood.org

The USA Freedom Corps has a databaseof volunteer opportunities that includehurricane relief in the Gulf States. Visittheir Web site www.usafreedomcorps.govfor more information.

Planning Didn’t SolveProblems

These towns on the coast haveweathered tropical storms andhurricanes before, some of them,many times before. Staffs of theseutilities have plans in place; of allthe people in the world, they areprobably the most prepared fordisasters. But this storm was dif-ferent, bigger than anyone couldanticipate and stronger than anyhurricane proofing that, up to thistime, man had invented.

“On a normal basis, you haveparts and personnel and equip-ment in stock to handle youreveryday needs, and you dothings to your system that pro-tect yourself from disasters,”Zimmerman says.

“You have back-up generatorsand diesel power to run yourwater wells, automatic switchovers to generate power on yourlift stations to make everythingfunction in case of loss of elec-tricity. This storm here, whenKatrina came in, was so devastat-ing that all of the backupcomponents we had in place allgot ruined.

“There’s no way to stockenough parts to cover somethinglike this,” he says. “We wouldhave 15, 20 water meters instock and that would last usfor two months, and we coulduse that up in a day. Yoursmall parts, you can’t preparefor it. There’s no way youcan be ready for somethingthis size. We had no phonecommunication, no electric-ity, no power, no ice, nowater, no emergency needs,the hospital was underwater. I realized the direconditions we were in.”

Although they remainedstanding, the two 110-footwater towers that service BaySt. Louis suffered a lot of sur-face damage from flying debris.

“On the east side of thetowers that were facing thewind,” Zimmerman says, “it

looks like somebody sandblastedthem. The shingles andpinecones and whatever else thatwas flying around in the air thathit them took a lot of the paintcoating off.”

The town is hoping that FEMAwill help recoat the 250,000 gal-lon towers. They’ve been in usefor more than 30 years, andthey’re still in good condition,Zimmerman says. The whole sys-tem works off a probe up in thetower that kicks the water on andoff, so it’s critical to have themfunctioning correctly.

Bay St. Louis has four waterwells. One of the well houseswas totally destroyed. Nothingremained but the wellhead stick-ing out of the ground.

Another well near his house onthe northwest end of town is onhigher ground, but its dieselengine was still flooded. On theday after the storm, he and aneighbor tore the motor down,cleaned all the parts and put itback together so

the well was pumping byTuesday morning. It didn’t main-tain much pressure, but he saidthat they got it up to five or 10pounds. The water wasn’t drink-able, although Zimmerman saysthat at least people could “washsomewhat and try to clean up alittle bit.” If nothing else, thatwater gave people some hope.They drove up in four-wheelerswith a tank on the back to takewater to parts of town that hadnone.

Having gotten somewater flowing,Zimmerman knewthat the next thing

www.nesc.wvu.edu 25

A well-known American brewery providedmore than four million cans of drinkingwater for the hurricane relief effort.Photo by Chris Metzgar

26 On Tap Winter 2006

to be done was to valve off theparts of town that were gone.But, he said all sorts of peo-ple—emergency responders,EPA, DEQ, the department ofpublic safety, government offi-cials—needed to speak withhim, wanting to assess damageand see what needed to bedone.

“I felt like a rag doll, every-body pulling me in a differentdirection,” Zimmerman recalls.The Bay St. Louis public worksdepartment has a crew of fourmen who helped shut off waterto the areas with broken lines.Zimmerman used them, pluswhoever else he could, when-ever he could, but it still tookthree days to get to all the valveboxes. They worked from nineo’clock to about three in themorning with the help of fire-men and flashlights to get thelast valve shut off.

After that, they set off totackle the other wells and getthem working. The town hastwo well houses that can run ondiesel power, but a gear driveneeded to power one wellbroke the week before thestorm. The gear drive wasshipped off to north Mississippifor repair. In those first fewdays, Zimmerman didn’t realizethat power was off in most ofthe state, not to mention thatnearly all the phone lines weredown, so “you couldn’t justpick up a phone and say, hey,bring me my 90-degree geardrive,” he says.

“So, I finally got the policechief to go to a ham operatorand got him to call another hamoperator and call the man thathad my 90-degree drive,” hecontinues. “And basically, themessage was bring me mydamn gear drive! I didn’t realizethat he didn’t have his place ofbusiness functioning where hecould even repair it. It was acouple of weeks before wecould finally get the gear driveback.”

They resorted to a generator,but it was a week before theyhad water back on in mostlocations in town, even thougha good bit of the town wasgone.

Before Katrina

Not only must a home’s exterior berepaired, but water damage necessitatestotal remediation to the interior as well.

These images of a home in Long Beach, Mississippi,illustrate how slowly and costly rebuilding is.

A Long Road to Recovery…

Photos by Michael C. Mulligan

After Katrina–August 28, 2005

About a mile of road along the beach is no longer there.Zimmerman says there was ahigh point along the beach, acliff, that was 30 or so feet abovesea level. That cliff is eroded to150 feet further inland now. Thehouses that were along thebeachfront road are sitting downin the hole. He said manholes areupside down, and water lines arebroken, exposed. Gas lines are inthe same fix. They cut all of thatsection of line off the system andcapped it at every street location.

“We probably have 30 locationsalong that area that are justcapped off,” he says. “And we’renot serving that area; there’s nohouses in there that’s livable.”

Help Pours InZimmerman says the town

would never have progressed towhere they are without the manypeople who came to help. Hementioned the crews organizedby Tom Abernathy and KirbyMayfield and their director PeteBoone. Crews from various other

state rural water associationshelped too. Zimmerman says that“four, five, as many as 15 at atime came down with tools. Theyhave performed miracles,” fixingleaks and isolating water lines sothat they could get the waterpressure up.

Ironically, some of the helpwas creating problems while theywere trying to do a good thing.Contracted clean-up crews wereusing hydraulic skid loaders withclampers on the front and track

Temporary water and wastewaterlines run above ground in many areasalong the Mississippi coast.Photos by Chris Metzgar

28 On Tap Winter 2006

hoes with “thumbs” on the front.These big machines scootedalong picking up trash and debrisby the truckload.

As you can imagine, theamount of debris is tremendous,millions of cubic yards of debris.In the process of removing all thismess, the machines were break-ing off water meters and firehydrants. These breaks causednew leaks that the public workscrew then had to go back andrepair. At one time, the clean-upcrews were breaking approxi-mately 40 to 50 water meters aday, and they had torn seven firehydrants out of the ground.

The public works departmentdidn’t let that go on for long.They devised a method wherebythey marked each repaired meteror service line with a two by four

The National Environmental Services Center has a number of different products and publicationsto help small systems recover from disasters. The following resources may be beneficial:

DWFSPE57 Emergency Disinfectionof Water Supplies$0.00

DWBLOM05 Shock Chlorination of Wellsand Springs . . . . . .$0.00

DWFSPE204 Water for Emergency Use . . . . . . . . . . . . .$0.00

DWBLMG69 Response ProtocolToolbox: Planning andResponding to DrinkingWater ContaminationThreats and Incidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$0.00

DWPKOM59 Emergency ResponsePlanning Pack (ERPP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$0.00

DWBLPE58 Water Testing . . . .$0.00

DWBLPE97 Water Testing Scams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$0.00

DWFSPE140 BacteriologicalContamination ofDrinking Water . .$0.00

DWBLPE183 Mycrobacteria: DrinkingWater Fact Sheet $0.00

DWBLPE112 Interpreting Drinking WaterQuality Analysis: What dothe numbers mean?$0.00

DWCDMG64 Emergency ResponseTabletop Exercises for Drinking Water and Wastewater Systems . . . . . . . . .$0.00

SFPLNL30 How to keep your water“well” . . . . . . . . . . .$0.40

SFPLNL06 Wastewater treatment pro-tects small community life,health . . . . . . . . . . .$0.40

GNBKGN12 Community-basedEnvironmental Protection—A Resource Book forProtecting Ecosystems andCommunities (Book on CD-Rom) . . . . . . . . . .$10.00

SFPLNL11 Basic WastewaterCharacteristics . .$0.40

TRBLGN25 Emergency ResponsePlanning Resources for Small Water and WastewaterUtilities . . . . . . . . .$2.55

TRBLGN26 Emergency Response PlanGuidance for Small andMedium Community Systems . . . . . . . . .$8.00

TRPMCD62 Due Diligence—Small WaterSystem Security . . . . . . .$32.00

TRPMCD56 Preparing for the Unexpected:Security for Small WaterSystems . . . . . . . .$39.80

TRBKMG03 Protecting Your Community’sAssets: A Guide for SmallWastewater Systems . .$15.00

TRCDMG05 Protecting Your Community’sAssets: A Guide for SmallWastewater Systems(CD-Rom ) . . . . . .$10.00

To order any of these publications, call NESC at (800) 624-8301or e-mail us at info@mail.nesc.wvu.edu. If you have any questions,our technical staff is available to help you with your water andwastewater needs.All you have to do is ASK!

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painted bright orange with thewords “water meter” written on it.

“The first phase of the cleanupwas the street and 15 feet eitherside of the street,” Zimmermansays. “The second phase of thecleanup, they’re going to go upon the properties and take andremove all the debris off of theproperties. They’re going to becrossing back and forth over thelocations where the water metersare again. So we’re trying tomark it and protect it so wedon’t have repeats callouts onthe same location.”

The town’s distribution systemalso suffered damage. Trees thatfell pulled water mains right upout of the ground. There werealso a couple of times whenpower poles were being re-set

after the storm and the utilityworkers didn’t use the one-callsystem. The reason for that?There were no phones fromwhich to make that call. Thepower companies hit the waterlines setting the power poles,which, Zimmerman says, wasunderstandable. “It wasn’t theirfault. They were in the same con-dition we were, trying to getpower back on. ”

Is my water on yet?People were anxious to get

moved back to their homes,whether there was an actualdwelling on the site anymore ornot. Previously, trailers were pro-hibited in Bay St. Louis, but theban has been temporarily lifted.Now people can live in trailersfor 18 months while they rebuildtheir homes and their lives.

Photo by Chris Metzgar.

would be a huge asset in a timeof disaster like this.”

Zimmerman also suggestskeeping mapping and as-builtdrawings up to date. But, hesays, there is no way to stockenough parts to “cover somethinglike this.” Ordinarily, their utilitywould have 15 or 20 watermeters in stock and they wouldlast for two months. But, withhaving to rebuild the town’sentire water system, they coulduse that many up in a day.

“There’s no way you can beready for something this size,” hesaid. “And, there’s no one that’sgoing to come out, back to nor-mal where they were before. . . .People in these areas are goingto need help for probably a yearto a year and a half. There arestill going to be things to do, allkinds of things are stillneeded down here.

Not surprisingly, Zimmermansays, when those people comeback to their home site, they’regoing to want to find their utili-ties up and running, business asusual. He said that it’s beenanother big problem, adding tothe stress of getting all the repairsmade. [OTOL: An emergencycontact list template is availableon the NESC Web site atwww.nesc.wvu.edu. The templatemay be useful for homeownersor public works personnel.]

“It’s some of the things I lay uplate at night thinking about,” hesays. “I was dog tired, but at mid-night I was still sitting on the sofastaring at the ceiling, thinkingabout how to handle this and howto handle that. It’s a desperate situ-ation, and so many people haveso much damage. I think that whatwe’re going to have to do is to goto the outside and ask for helpand ask for volunteer plumbers tocome down and try to help.

“My wife and I are very lucky,but you’ve got people who are inthe same condition as we arefunding-wise, and they have a lotmore damage,” Zimmerman says.“So they can’t afford $300 for aplumber to come in and checkthis, and they can’t afford $500 tohave an electrician come in anddo that. I think that’s what we’regoing to have to do. We’re start-ing to get cool weather downhere now and people don’t haveheat. . . .We need some plumbersand stuff to come down here anddonate their time or set up agroup where you can come inand apply for free help to comein and they help you. I think itcan be done, but it’s just notgoing to happen fast enough.Everything’s slowed way down.”

Advice to OthersAlthough being fully prepared

for a catastrophe of this dimen-sion may be nearly impossible,there are some things that a com-munity water system can do tomake recovery somewhat less dif-ficult. Zimmerman suggestsinstalling GPS [geographic posi-tioning system] for locating all thewater valves and meters through-out the community. This kind oftechnology eliminates the needfor above-ground, physical loca-tors that may be wiped out in adisaster, such as a hurricane. Likeother forms of disaster prepara-tion, GPS isn’t foolproof,especially in circumstances wherethe ground is literally washedaway. But it establishes locationpoints that may prove invaluablein the long run.

“I have seen, since this storm,a backhoe and a three-man crew,spend three hours looking for awater meter to shut water off thatwas flowing,” he says. The meterpreviously may have been rightby the sidewalk, but there’s nosidewalk anymore. Or it mayhave been by the tree, and thetree’s gone. “You have no way ofhaving anything to relate thelocation of things. If you canafford GPS location on stuff, it

www.nesc.wvu.edu 29

Michelle Moore,On Tap associate editor, wel-comes reader feedback—both positive and nega-tive—on her articles.Contact her atmichelle.moore@mail.wvu.edu.