Outside Herbert Hall, where Hurricane Katrina evacuees are housed on the Mississippi State University campus, 57-year-old twins sat with family members at a picnic table. Without premeditation, Lorraine Albanese and Elaine Daquain wore matching T-shirts.
“The Red Cross gave these to us,” they said, laughing.
The twins evacuated from Chalmette, La., in St. Bernard Parish and have been staying at Herbert Hall. The hall has housed 120 evacuees total and is now housing 80.
“We always housed disaster victims before Katrina,” student housing assistant Shay McDonnall, who is in charge of housing evacuees, said.
Albanese said her home has to be bulldozed. The aftermath flood rose two feet over the roof of her and her sister’s houses, completely destroying them. “No belongings were salvaged,” she said.
They lived in houses two blocks away from an oil refinery that lost 85,000 tanks in a spill. “All the houses in that area are sitting in toxic waste,” Daquain said. “You can’t build anything on top of that stuff.”
A mud-like combination of water, oil and waste stands two to four feet high. “There are rumors that the oil refinery might buy our homes from us,” Albanese said.
The two families also left their jobs. The building where Albanese worked was destroyed.
In Chalmette, Albanese held a job as a floater at a JP Morgan Chase Bank for 31 years. The bank has a temporary opening for her in Dallas.
Daquain’s son was returning home to work at the Folgers manufacturing plant. “They have trailers on their property,” he said.
His wife, Christina, and two daughters, Hannah and Mia, will stay in Starkville. Hannah had just come from preschool at First Baptist, who let her attend free of charge. Katrina hit on her fourth birthday.
“I didn’t invite Katrina to our birthday party,” Christina Daquain said, laughing. She wore blue scrubs from her new job in Columbus as an ophthalmologist’s assistant.
It was her first day on the job. “There’s a truck-load full of stuff that everyone at work gave me,” she said. “One woman took the watch off her wrist and gave it to me,” she said, holding up her wrist, which flashed a silver Fossil.
“The Red Cross gave us vouchers to go to Wal-Mart,” the twins said. “And the First Methodist Church [in Starkville] has set us up in two houses in the country,” they said.
“Out there, there’s goats and horses the kids can play with,” Daquain said.
“Starkville has been so wonderful, a God-send,” Albanese said. “But we really miss home,” she said, crying a little.