Posted on 10/11/2005 9:05:55 AM PDT by WestTexasWend
Travis and Austin officers help New Orleans jailer make Austin home ~
Marcel Weathers stood on the runway at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, his eyes locked on a sign that listed three possible destinations for thousands of weary hurricane evacuees.
The 38-year-old father of two, exhausted from days without sleep and separated from his family, had only a few minutes to make a decision.
Houston?
San Antonio?
Austin?
Five days earlier, on Aug. 29, Hurricane Katrina had blasted through his hometown in St. Bernard Parish outside New Orleans, killing dozens of people and obliterating homes, businesses and the parish jail where Weathers had worked for 11 years as a corrections officer.
With destruction all around and the parish swallowed in floodwater, Weathers got permission that Saturday to leave. So after trading his dirt-covered uniform for gray jail trusty scrubs, he caught a helicopter ride to the airport.
Even among a crowd of other evacuees on the hot pavement, Weathers said, feelings of loneliness overwhelmed him, the magnitude of the disaster sinking in. His ex-wife and their two young children, who lived a mile from him, had evacuated to Atlanta before the hurricane.
He had sent the rest of his family, including his mother and two disabled brothers, north but had no idea where they were. He was most worried about his mother, who has Alzheimer's disease.
Instead of breaking down, Weathers said, he tried to focus on the most immediate decision.
He had never been to Houston or San Antonio.
But he had driven to Austin last year for a vacation, staying a week at a downtown hotel and walking Sixth Street and the Warehouse District.
"It was beautiful, and the city was so nice," Weathers said.
He boarded the Austin-bound plane.
More than a month after the hurricane, Weathers — just as thousands of other evacuees scattered by Katrina — is rebuilding his life. For him and many others, the process has been aided by a series of coincidences and chance meetings with generous strangers.
"So many things have just happened that are unexplainable," Weathers said. "Things just seemed to click right in place when I needed it to.
"Maybe it was God's will."
For Weathers, it started when he met Austin police officer Chris Frierson.
Frierson, a motorcycle officer, was working a 16-hour overtime patrol shift at the Austin Convention Center shelter, where the department had stationed dozens of officers.
Sometime early Sunday, a volunteer told him about an evacuee who worked in law enforcement in St. Bernard Parish. Frierson found him at a bank of computers.
Weathers was checking Web sites to try to find his mother, who he thought might be registered at a Red Cross shelter.
"He looked kind of disheveled," Frierson said. "You could tell that he had been up for more than 24 to 36 hours. I could imagine what it would be like to be in his shoes. That's what made me want to help him."
Frierson used his cell phone to call the Austin Police Association and asked whether the union could do anything to help. President Mike Sheffield got the message after church and headed to the center.
Sheffield said he offered to pay for a hotel room for Weathers, but Weathers had already met a local preacher who said she had church members willing to host evacuees and their families.
By then, Weathers said, he had made his decision: He was going to stay in Austin.
"Number one, I'm tired of evacuating," he said. "Number two, I don't have my job anymore. I think there are bigger and better things for me here in Austin."
He asked Sheffield about finding work as a corrections officer. Sheffield took him to a nearby table where officials with the Travis County sheriff's department, which runs the jail, were making child identification cards.
The deputies told Weathers that Sheriff Greg Hamilton was expected any minute.
Hamilton showed up at the convention center a couple of hours later, and Weathers began his sales pitch about his experience as a corrections officer.
Hamilton said he was impressed, and the two hit it off immediately. The sheriff asked Weathers to call him after the Labor Day holiday.
"I was praying that I would meet someone who could help me," Weathers said. "He came along and did just that."
Hamilton said, "It was clear he wasn't looking for a handout. He was looking for a hand up.
"He was safe, but he had lost everything he had. He was willing to try Austin, Texas, and I was willing to give him a shot."
That night, Weathers rented a minivan and stayed at the home of the Rev. Cassandra Moore, the minister he had met earlier who is a pastor at the nondenominational Harvesting Ministries Inc.
He didn't know where he would live. And he still didn't know if his family was OK.
He called Hamilton early Tuesday.
The sheriff had good news.
A few minutes earlier, Hamilton had received an e-mail from Ed Tarbutton, a friend from his days at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, now Texas State University. Tarbutton said he had a vacant house near downtown San Marcos. If Hamilton knew of someone who needed it, Tarbutton said, an evacuee could live there indefinitely, rent-free.
"I think it was fate," Hamilton said. "This guy (Weathers) comes up to me and says he's looking for a job, and lo and behold, I'm able to help this guy through my association with others."
That Friday, Weathers finally got a call through to his brother-in-law's cell phone. He and the rest of the family, including his mother, sister, and three nieces, were at a shelter in Shreveport, La. When he heard the news, Weathers said, he began to cry.
"I didn't know what happened or anything, even if they had made it out," he said. "I was joyous. When you don't know what happened to your family, and you are hearing about these people getting caught in the storm and dying, what else can you be?"
Weathers raced to Louisiana to pick up the group and brought them to Austin. That night, they went to a Wal-Mart to buy clothes and other supplies and moved into the home of one of the members of Moore's church in Round Rock, where they would stay for a couple of weeks.
The next day, Weathers woke up at 5 a.m., drove to the Travis County jail in Del Valle and took oral and written tests to become a corrections officer. He aced them both.
"It was a lot of pressure because you are starting over," he said. "My present life was riding on that."
Then, Hamilton picked Weathers up and drove him to San Marcos to see the house.
The three-bedroom, 1,400-square-foot home just off the downtown square had been vacant for months. It still had a Century 21 sign out front.
Weathers saw that it was about the same size as the family home he had recently remodeled in St. Bernard Parish, where he had lived alone.
He moved through the house slowly, opening closet doors and envisioning where he could set up beds and other furniture that he did not yet have. He saw the one-car carport, the outside storage shed and the large back porch.
"I love a porch," Weathers said.
He looked at Hamilton.
"We'll take it," he said.
Hamilton blanketed his department with requests for furniture and other accessories to fill the house.
Deputies and other employees donated sofas, a television, a stereo, beds and kitchen supplies. Two weeks ago, workers loaded the furnishings onto their personal trucks and into a large department trailer and drove them to San Marcos.
Joellyn Brelsford, an executive assistant at the department, brought towels and bed linens. After cleaning out her kitchen, she gave Weathers and his family extra cooking spoons, cups, and pots and pans.
"It's not going to be enough to do everything with, but it will get them started," she said, unpacking the boxes and storing the supplies in kitchen cabinets.
Weathers, his two brothers and mother moved into the house that day. The five other family members are staying indefinitely in government housing in Austin.
Weathers is unsure whether his family will stay in Austin or eventually return to St. Bernard Parish.
His ex-wife got a job transfer and bought a house in Atlanta for her and their children, Tyler, 6, and Summer, 3. Weathers is resolved to see them as much as possible.
Meanwhile, Weathers is waiting to go to work at the Travis County Jail. He should be able to start in a couple of weeks, after a background check is finished.
Last week, Weathers went back to St. Bernard Parish for the first time since the hurricane. He stopped in Lafayette to pick up a friend who also had evacuated. He didn't want to face the destruction alone.
At his house on Louis Elam Street, the waterline goes to the ceiling. Mold has crept up the walls. The roof is gone in places. Windows are blown out. Everything is covered in a thick, tarlike material.
He is certain that it will need to be torn down.
"The whole parish is just destroyed," he said. "I literally mean that. It was just horrific."
Weathers thinks that he will go back to St. Bernard Parish one more time to collect the insurance from his house.
"Then, I'll get on with my life here in Austin," he said.
This is a feel good story. I'm very happy for this man and proud of him.
If he's smart, he'll return to NOLA, when the levees are rebuilt, in about say, 20 years..
Hamilton said, "It was clear he wasn't looking for a handout. He was looking for a hand up.
He'll do very well. We need more folks like him. I hope all goes well for him. He's an asset to any community.
All these little coincidences will make a believer out of an atheist...
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