Evacuation of Riverbend Nursing Home in Kentwood, LA, during Katrina
Daryl and Kathy Chauvin by Blanche Jewell, 2007; 4700.1950
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Daryl and Kathy Chauvin. Photo by David Breidenbach.
TEMPESTS: Storms in the Archives
Cathy Chauvin: I was working at Riverbend Nursing and Rehab Center. I actually evacuated with my nursing home. So we took eighty-five geriatrics to Kentwood and housed them in a gymnasium.
We had evacuated before, so it wasn't new to us. We took all of our residents' mattresses with us. And we took enough clothing for three days for each resident. And of course we took just huge quantities of things like diapers and medical supplies. We took all of our medicine carts and just put them in the back of vehicles. Then we loaded three buses of our residents, and that was tough because most of them couldn't get on the bus.
The employees didn't really stay in the gymnasium. Some of our CNAs [Certified Nursing Assistants] stayed in an upstairs area with their children. But it was very tight quarters up there, and we didn't want to impede on the residents, because they didn't have a whole lot of space. So most of us slept in our automobiles at night, and then we'd get up.
But we were very fortunate. We had a couple of guys who had evacuated with us, the maintenance man and his brother. And they managed to make a makeshift shower, so we were able to keep the residents clean. We really met all of their needs. And we laughed, some crew from Red Cross came though, and they, I guess, panicked, seeing that we had all these elderly. And the first thing they said was that they would be more than happy to bring us food. Well, we were providing not only three meals a day, but three hot meals a day. They were getting balanced meals that were hot. So we just kind of got a kick out of that, because we were managing.
We kind of started to panic. I'm trying to think, it must have been like Thursday of the first week. We had all these contracts with people, but nobody could get through. And I'll never forget, out of nowhere, these three trucks showed up. It was people from some northern state, I don't even know where they were from, who just decided to get on the road. And they packaged ice, and just all the basics that they really needed. Ice! I never though ice would be such a thrill. But we were so happy to get ice. And they had propane, because we needed propane to run the things for the kitchen, you know. And they showed up with all of that. Don't ever think that one person can't make a difference in this world.