Welcome to our online chat with J-W reporter Terry Rombeck about Hurricane Katrina cleanup efforts.

The chat took place on Monday, June 12, at 1:30 PM and is now closed, but you can read the full transcript on this page.

Moderator: Welcome to our chat today with Terry Rombeck, a Journal-World reporter who recently participated in a Hurricane Katrina cleanup effort in Mississippi.

I’m Dave Toplikar, online editor, and I’d serve as moderator today.

Terry, we’ve got a lot of questions ready to go.

But first can you tell us a little about your experiences.

Terry Rombeck: Sure thing. Glad to do this.

I spent a week, from May 28 through June 3, in Bay St. Louis, Miss., which is in Hancock County. You can read more about the area in my story in the paper and online today.

Basically, the mission group I was with, from First United Methodist Church in Lawrence, spent the time getting work assignments in Bay St. Louis and another town, Waveland. We did a variety of work, including roofing, insulation work and spraying for mold.

We also got to talk with a lot of residents while we were there.

Rick, Lawrence: What seem to be the biggest needs, as far as volunteers go?

Terry Rombeck: It seems like, at least in the area where we were, that the biggest need is skilled workers who are willing to volunteer their time.

J-W reporter Terry Rombeck responds to readers' questions.

There is plenty to do for unskilled people (or those who are willing to be trained). But we ran into a lot of people who needed their houses rewired, or who needed plumbing work done. At some point, I think there will be a bottleneck for that sort of work. Also, there are plenty of people down there who can’t afford that skilled labor. We met one lady on Social Security who needed $6,000 to rewire her house, and she flat didn’t have it.

Alan Topeka, KS: As a Kansan, wondering if you could compare the aftermath of a tornado to that of a Hurricane.

Terry Rombeck: I thought about that a lot when I was down there, actually. I saw the aftermath of the tornadoes in Haysville, Andover and Lawrence and that was the closest thing I could compare the Katrina damage to.

But there are two differences. The first is that tornadoes (at least major ones) damage all of a structure that it comes into contact with. Katrina did destroy some houses and other buildings, but there are far more that were just flooded, so they can be gutted and repaired.

The second difference, though, is just the scale of the damage. A tornado might cut a path that’s a mile wide and destroy everything in its path. This damage, from Katrina, is everywhere – and not just in the town we were in, but in the entire county and all up and down the coast. The scope of this is hard to compare, in terms of tornadoes.

Brent Lawrence: What precautions are the citizens taking for this year’s hurricane season? What is their attitude about it?

Terry Rombeck: There’s certainly a lot of talk down there about hurricane season starting up (we were there on the first official day of the season, June 1). I don’t know that a ton of things are being done differently, though there is more media coverage and official discussion about evacuation plans, as I understand it.

I also read a few stories in the local media about the danger of staying in FEMA trailers during a storm. Most of the people I talked with realize, from the damage that Katrina caused, that they’re better off getting out of town if there’s another hurricane. I think Katrina gave them a lot of respect for Mother Nature.

Darien from Lawrence: Where do they put all the debris?

Terry Rombeck: I’m not an expert on this one, though I know it’s a mix of existing landfills and new landfills spread through the Gulf Coast area. There have been 43 million cubic yards of debris removed in Mississippi thus far, and the process is 97.6 percent complete for the state (94 percent for the county we were in), according to FEMA.

Ron, Eudora: Was there anything that surprised you on the trip, that the media reports haven’t gotten right?

Terry Rombeck: I don’t know if there was anything the media have got wrong, based on my one week there. I will say this, though: It’s impossible for a story or anything else for that matter to encapsulate the scope of the damage.

If anything, I was surprised how much devastation was still there, and how long it will take to bring the area back to where it was before. The locals say it could be a decade.

I posed this same question to the others who went on the trip. One man said he was surprised at how little some of the residents down there understood about the recovery process at their homes (why mold has to be removed, what size of insulation to purchase, etc.). But I suppose a lot of people were suddenly thrust into a situation they had never been in, so there’s a learning curve for most everyone.

Kendra Lawrence: Were any of the schools damaged? How did the towns accommodate the educational process?

Terry Rombeck: In the areas where we were, pretty much everything was damaged in some way, including the schools.

As I understand it, most of the schools were closed for a matter of weeks or months after the storm. Some school operations have been moved to new, temporary locations. We drove by one that had 20 or 30 temporary classrooms in the parking lot.

In the Hancock County district, 60 percent of the students had returned by the end of the school year. I’m guessing the summer will give the districts a chance to get things ready to go again for the fall.

Cathy, Lawrence: Were people scared about hurricane season this year? What are they doing to prepare?

Terry Rombeck: I heard some fear, but not from everyone. Katrina, as one man put it, was a “freak of nature.” To have something remotely that bad this year would be incredibly unlikely.

But…Hurricane Camille was the benchmark for this area, in terms of damage, flood elevations, building standards, etc. Nobody thought they’d see something worse than Camille. And Katrina was not only worse, it was far worse. So there’s always that fear that the benchmark storm (now Katrina, of course) could be topped.

kim, Lawrence: In this day of universal, immediate, communication, how did the story of Katrina get so hopelessly mistold?

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Terry Rombeck: Well…if what you mean is the miscommunication about how bad the New Orleans situation was immediately following the storm, I can offer a bit of insight into that.

I talked with one gentleman who couldn’t contact his family outside Bay St. Louis for 10 days after the storm. Cell phones are only good if towers are working. His family didn’t know if he made it through or not. If landline phones are out, and the Internet is out, I can understand how the area could have been cut off from the rest of the world.

And at that point, the rumor mill gets started up.

So I guess my answer is that the “universal, immediate communication” that we’re used to may not have been in place, and that added to confusion.

Moderator: That will be our last question for today.

Terry, thanks for chatting with our readers today.

Terry Rombeck: My pleasure. If anyone gets a chance to go down to this area, I’d strongly suggest it – both for the chance to help people and to see it for yourself.