Second Line Rescue: Improvised Responses to Katrina and Rita

Government Gives Tradition the Go-Ahead: The Atchafalaya Welcome Center’s Role in Hurricane Katrina Recovery

53 The assault of Katrina and Rita—if not the biggest, longest, or most deadly catastrophic event in world history—is undeniably the catastrophic event of our lifetime—one which we will spend the rest of our lives trying to understand and recover from. There is no need to catalog the numerous horrifying stories of government failure that followed the wholesale loss of life, the widespread destruction of housing, and the loss of income for many. We have all, by now, heard countless accounts of the failure of government to meet the needs of hurricane victims and to cooperate with civic-minded citizens and businesses. And we have all—at least we’re assuming all—felt the indignity associated with such failure. But in our fieldwork to document hurricane stories, we found a case that made us feel unashamed. This article is to unabashedly celebrate a local example of cooperation between government and citizens which worked not just well, but exceptionally well: The staff at the Butte La Rose Atchafalaya Welcome Center responded to victims of Hurricane Katrina with not only basic necessities but also with grace, generosity, and an organic hospitality embedded in local tradition and shared community values. JOCELYN H. DONLON AND JON G. DONLON Government Gives Tradition the Go-Ahead The Atchafalaya Welcome Center’s Role in Hurricane Katrina Recovery [This article was originally published in the Louisiana Folklore Miscellany, Volume 16–17 in 2008.] 54 Jocelyn H. Donlon and Jon G. Donlon When the staff of the Atchafalaya Welcome Center got “the call” and the credit card from Angele Davis, secretary of tourism, on the Wednesday after Katrina made landfall, the welcome center began to play quick host to thousands of our tired, our hungry, our own huddled masses yearning to eat and to be clean again. In her work with the State of Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Emergency Operations Center, otherwise known as “Command Center,” Angele Davis had identified the Atchafalaya Welcome Center as well as the state welcome center in Alexandria as being on the path of the exit buses transiting evacuees from New Orleans. Davis’s role, as she described it, was to secure transportation for first responders, relief workers, and evacuees. She also worked with DOTD to provide logistical assistance in mapping bus routes as they exited the Superdome and Convention Center. Following Davis’s directive , the Atchafalaya center did indeed become a very welcome island of brief respite for hurricane victims who were evacuated from the Superdome and the Convention Center. Over the course of three days, the staff and community volunteers fed, clothed, and literally rehumanized more than 100,000 people. The Atchafalaya Welcome Center is the flagship for a once-planned series of heavily enhanced “portal” rest stops (needless to say, these plans have been delayed by the hurricanes). From its inception, the Atchafalaya Welcome Center has been a community facility. Residents participated in government meetings to help design it, their handiwork is on exhibit there, and they have been an active part of its success by volunteering for events. Because they were already familiar with the welcome center as a community site, they knew exactly where to go when help was needed. We have had some history with this welcome center. Five years ago, we prepared a cultural inventory of resources to be used in the exhibit area; we sat in on meetings to consult on design and interpretation; we have written educational materials for the Atchafalaya Basin Program tied to a fieldtrip to the welcome center; and we have generally been advocates for its effectiveness. Grounded in our Basin fieldwork, we delivered a paper a few years ago at the Louisiana Folklore Society meeting describing Atchafalaya Basin Houseboat Communities. In it, we explained that “traditional campboat communities in the Atchafalaya Basin developed their own culture and way of life, as well as passing along, generation by generation, a lavish body of technical information about their specialized skills. Fathers, uncles, mothers, aunts, and friends taught young people their way of life.” The Atchafalaya Welcome Center’s Role in Hurricane Katrina Recovery 55 In the instance of the welcome center, it’s not necessarily technical minutia of commercial fishing being transmitted from generation to generation , but the shared values and traditions of community and family that were brought to bear. From within the folk group of Acadiana, in general, and...