Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf shoreline, the town of Waveland, Miss., is still in utter disarray.
Public lighting is limited, clothing still hangs from trees and the remains of many houses and destroyed vehicles have yet to be removed from what were once front yards and parking lots.
"It looks like a bomb went off and blew the whole city up," said Warsaw resident Bobbie Junker, one of six Hoosiers recently returning from Waveland relief efforts.
On Feb. 5, a group of Indiana massage therapists, including Junker and Leesburg resident Dianna Jarboe, traveled to Waveland in hopes of helping the town's residents through clean-up efforts and massage therapy. The group, calling themselves "The Barnabas Project," stayed in an old NAPA Auto Center building, now used as a shelter for town servants and volunteers.
"The first time I traveled down there, I was alarmed at what I saw," Barnabas project leader Kathy Shadrick, of Carmel, said. "The hurricane looked like it had hit the day before."
They spent their first days gutting the inside of a house - removing furniture, family belongings, and, unfortunately, the deceased family dog found under a bed mattress.
Junkers said mud covered much of the building's interior and water damage could be seen in the rafters. Rats had taken refuge within its closets and walls.
"The hardest part about the clean up was removing and throwing away what was once this family's lives," Junkers said. "We were removing old pictures, clothing and things that we knew were very important to these people."
They removed a pair of baby shoes, an engraved pocket watch with the words "The World's #1 Dad" and numerous pictures, both ruined and salvageable, that showed the growth of the family's children.
Everything extracted from the home was placed on the side of the road for pick-up. The group spent the entire first day cleaning the house.
Junkers wrote that close to 65,000 homes in Mississippi were destroyed during Katrina, with 38,000 of them still needing to be demolished. Clean-up efforts are estimated to take anywhere from three to five years.
"They're not even a quarter of the way there," Shadrick said. "No one could have imagined the devastation this storm caused."
The next day, the group set up work stations at a nearby hospital and performed massage therapy on the center's employees.
"Most people we helped were happy, but they felt like we were their only hope," Junkers said. "This time gave people a chance to share their stories. So many people felt so relieved. It gave them a chance to let go."
Junkers said the massages helped many get an adequate amount of sleep for the first time since Katrina hit.
Headaches were cured and others were able to lessen stress medication after receiving the massages. The group also taught stretching routines, which would help the Katrina victims from tensing up muscles during times of high stress.
"Most importantly, we were the ears that listened to their stories," Shadrick said. "It was a major part of the healing process. We helped validate their pain and help them move forward."
From Waveland, the group traveled in their 15-passenger van to Long Beach, Miss., where they again performed their massages on city employees and helped roof a house.
Pass Christian, Miss., was also visited, a town Shadrick said lost half its population after the hurricane. Few businesses have been able to open in any of the mentioned towns, and school systems are limited.
"A mayor of one of the town's actually looked at me and said, 'I don't know if my little town is going to make it,'" Shadrick said. "It was a good and bad thing to hear. Good because he was opening up to me and getting it off his chest, and bad because it showed the hopelessness these people feel during a time when they feel so vulnerable."
After five days of helping the destroyed communities, they traveled back to Indiana. Both Shadrick and Junker plan on continuing efforts and returning to Mississippi every two months for support.
"I just think it'd be awesome thing to get more people down there to help," Junker said.
Individuals interested in donating time or money to the hurricane relief efforts can contact Junker at bjunk@mchsi.com or write to The Healthy Touch, 221 N. Indiana St., Warsaw, Indiana, 46580.
