Retired nurse travels to Mississippi to aid hurricane victims
By Lee Raynor, Editor
Posted: 1:47 AM EST Friday November 18, 2005 |
Twelve officers were on duty in the Pass Christian Police Station when Hurricane Katrina struck. The officers escaped by swimming in the waves that swept over the city. All survived.
This scene greeted Bonnie McLawhorn as she and her medical team arrived in Gulfport, Miss., three weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area. |
A trip from a quiet home in Lenoir County to a region torn apart by Nature’s fury can never be measured it miles. Its only measurement is in tears and laughter, compassion and hope, and a renewed faith in God.
This was the reward Bonnie McLawhorn found during two weeks in September she spent in Mississippi helping Hurricane Katrina victims heal three weeks after the storm savaged that state’s coastal towns.
It is an experience McLawhorn will never forget.
A registered nurse for 46 years and retired for more than four years, McLawhorn keeps her license current. Perhaps Someone Up There knew she would need it.
"I am a Christian and when things like this happen I feel a responsibility toward the people, and particularly toward the elderly, because God gave me a talent," she said. "It was tearing my heart out to know that there were people down there that were old and couldn’t take care of themselves, and children that couldn’t take care of themselves, and the needs that I could envision before I even went."
Hurricane devastation wasn’t new to McLawhorn. She was director of a nursing home in Charlotte when Hurricane Hugo struck there. Remembering that experience, McLawhorn felt sure that Mississippi coast dwellers were living with the same horror, only much worse. |
She talked with her husband, Herman McLawhorn, sharing her feelings and her need to help by giving more than just the relief checks the couple had already sent.
At almost the same time, she saw an announcement on TV that the U.S. Health Service, an arm of the U.S. Navy, was asking for trained medical volunteers.
"I saw that, and Herman said if I felt that strong about it, I should go sign up," she said. "So I did."
McLawhorn had no idea about the horrors she would encounter.
She received a reply to her e-mail almost immediately asking her to come right away. The notice arrived on Sunday night. The health service wanted her in Gulfport on Tuesday.
Moving quickly, she assembled her old uniforms, medical supplies and basic living paraphernalia. The service had told her she should prepare for "austere conditions." She envisioned sleeping under a tree in a sleeping bag and eating MREs, those meals ready to eat that are supplied to soldiers in the field.
"If Herman hadn’t been so supportive, I wouldn’t have been able to go," McLawhorn said.
The health service organized teams of 10 medical volunteers and sent them into such towns as Biloxi, Pass Christian, Pascagula, Waveland, Ocean Springs towns shattered when the eye of Katrina struck with full force.
Few doctors remained in the towns. They had evacuated before the storm struck, returned to find their offices and equipment in ruins, and left to set up practices somewhere else.
As McLawhorn traveled into Gulfport, where the medical teams were based, she saw cars tossed like Tinkertoys into ditches and along highways. The storm picked up a house and set it back down astride a railroad track. A gigantic boat found a new mooring place next to a grave in a cemetery. The Pass Christian police station was a helter skelter pile of lumber. The only sign that other houses once existed were the still-intact steps leading nowhere.
"Those steps are everywhere, just everywhere," McLawhorn said.
And this was three weeks after the storm came calling.
"Everywhere you went was disaster," she said. "You cannot possibly image without going there what these people are going through."
Many coastal Mississippians heeded the danger warnings and evacuated their towns, some leaving with only the clothes they wore. When the all-clear announcement came, and they returned home, many found nothing. No home. No cherished photographs. No dishes or pots and pans or lawnmower. Not a stick of furniture. It was gone. Everything they held dear was gone.
"That water came in and stayed 10 hours," McLawhorn said. "Anything that looked normal, and not much was normal looking, anything that looked normal inside was full of black mold and washed out."
An elementary school looked untouched except for broken windows and twisted blinds. Inside, volunteers found an open school book and a purse holding a child’s lunch money. Pass Christian’s high school appeared to be in good shape, but had to be gutted.
"We were out one day looking for elderly and saw this U-Haul truck by a high school," McLawhorn said. "We went up to them and they were taking book bags out of that truck. They were trying to prepare themselves to get school started back up. These high school students were taking these bags and we went in to talk to them. And they were putting Bibles into these book bags.
"This young man walked up to me and said, ‘We’re going to pray over these book bags. Would you like to pray with us?’ I said I’d be honored. They made this great big, huge circle and these two young high school boys prayed a prayer that was as good as anything you’ve ever heard Billy Graham pray. And I stood there and cried like a baby."
McLawhorn did a lot of crying during her two weeks in Mississippi. She cried for what was lost and what was saved. She cried for people who stoically faced their losses and were grateful for every kindness they received. Her heart broke when she saw elderly residents who clung to their homes when all that was left was a porch or a set of concrete stairs.
"These are the strongest, most gracious people," she said. "They’re not what you’re hearing about in New Orleans. These people in Mississippi are so proud that some of them wouldn’t even ask for a handout. I can’t even tell you the number of times I was hugged and kissed on the cheek."
McLawhorn’s team dispensed medicine, comforted stress victims, searched for people in out-of-the-way places who might need help.
"Their medicines were washed away," she said. "We were giving free medicine. Wal-Mart set up a pharmacy outside in a tent and people could go there and get free medicine. And CVS was finally able to get one started. This was five weeks after Katrina. In the beginning, they didn’t have insulin, they didn’t have heart medicine. It all washed away. They didn’t even have a prescription for it. We just had to take their word for it."
The city of Charlotte sent a fully-equipped portable hospital. East Carolina University sent volunteers. One of the nurses on McLawhorn’s team was from Franklin. Everywhere McLawhorn looked, compassionate people were helping men and women, children and the elderly. Anyone who needed help.
"It was almost like, ‘You know, God, we don’t have any certain drug’ or ‘We don’t have certain things,’ and here would come a truckload. It was like He was sending everything He knew you needed," she said. "The doctors. We needed a doctor and this man came up and said, ‘You need a doctor?’ It was awesome, just awesome, the way God was working down there."
The sweltering heat, the air thick with mosquitoes, the heart-breaking scenes that unfolded hour after hour these are things McLawhorn will never forget.
"There is so much suffering and devastation and so much to do," she said. "There is no way it can get done quickly. Herman says we’ll go back in about five years and see how much has been done."
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