Strength to lead the charge

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

By Patrick Strange
Staff Writer, NOLA.com

In the days leading to Katrina's landfall, Rev. Vien Nguyen of Mary Queen of Vietnam, a Catholic church located in the mostly Vietnamese-American area of Versailles in eastern New Orleans, summoned his parishioners to take refuge in the church's multi-story rectory. Nearly 500 people including young children and elderly with special needs heeded Nguyen's call, huddling together in the building that usually serves as permanent residence for Nguyen and two other parish priests.

For a day and night, the large group of first, second and third-generation Vietnamese immigrants listened to hurricane winds knock over trees and tear roofs from nearby houses. On Monday, August 29, 2005, those who waited out the storm emerged from the impromptu shelter after winds died down, thinking the worst was behind them.

"I went out again at 5:30, and I thought to myself, 'it seems that the water has gone up,' " says Nguyen. "In my past experience, that should be just the opposite. The water should have gone down."

After learning of the levee breaches from the radio, Nguyen immediately called back those who were by then surveying their homes and businesses for damage. Located on higher elevation and outside the flood zone, the church seemed safe refuge for Nguyen and those who remained in the area. Families returned Monday evening and stayed in cramped quarters while most of eastern New Orleans quickly filled with water.

Since many of those sheltered in the rectory did not speak English, Nguyen served as the only source of information in already chaotic and uncertain circumstances. Relaying bits of news he obtained from the radio and word of mouth, Nguyen tried to maintain order as fears grew over lack of sanitation and the risks of infection. Two days later, after making numerous attempts to seek outside help as water continued to rise, most people in the rectory were finally evacuated by rescue workers roaming the area.

However, Nguyen elected to stay behind with a family of a paralyzed stroke victim who was too ill to be evacuated by boat. Nguyen sent off the others while he and family members stayed to minister the infirm. Equipped with a generator and bottled water, they waited anxiously for a rescue that would not come until three days later.

Ever since the harrowing ordeal, Nguyen has not only become a hero in his own right, but a central figure in a community's fight to return and overcome the odds in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Return and Reclaim

Nguyen frames Katrina's aftermath and the past year in clear and simple terms. To him, it all comes down to one succinct plan of action, "return and reclaim." And Nguyen and the community he represents have wasted no time in returning full-force to the place they call home.

The pace in which the people of Versailles have executed Nguyen's call to arms has been evident since the time immediately following Katrina. Shortly after fleeing New Orleans, Nguyen outfitted the church's 50-passenger van and traveled throughout Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas gathering people who were dispersed following evacuations. Bordered by a series of levees and raised roadways, including I-10 and Chef Menteur Hwy., the church and many surrounding homes were spared serious flooding. As a result, many of the people whom Nguyen and fellow volunteers picked up from shelters were able to return home much more quickly than other eastern New Orleans residents.

By the end of October 2005, nearly 500 families had returned to Versailles, practically making it the largest community in eastern New Orleans over night.

In the first few weeks after people returned, potable water was transported daily to Versailles from Algiers and cafeteria-style meals were cooked using gas-powered generators. According to Nguyen, while the sparse resources enabled people to stay, life was getting increasingly tough for those who were once so eager to return.

"After a few days, my people said that they needed electricity," Nguyen recounts. "They said if they had electricity, they could get back on their feet."

Using the community's rebounding population as leverage, Nguyen approached Entergy officials and asked them to divert power to Versailles from higher priority areas such as downtown New Orleans. Gathering a petition from all the residents who had returned, Nguyen delivered a quick blow in the fight for electric power.

"I had my people deliver a list of 500 households requesting electricity…and on the first weekend of November, we got it," Nguyen says.

After getting power, the community rapidly got to work re-roofing houses and rebuilding small businesses. According to Nguyen, presently 47 of 53 Vietnamese-American owned businesses have reopened, 8 restaurants are in operation and nearly every house that suffered wind damage now has a new roof.

Nguyen and his parishioners' ability to mobilize and gets things done seems an anomaly in a city where recovery often happens at a painfully sluggish rate and where many areas only have a fraction of their pre-storm populations. Taking a step back, Nguyen says that he and his neighbors have one key advantage over other parts of New Orleans.

"Other people have neighborhoods, we have a community." Nguyen says. "80 percent of the Vietnamese-American population in New Orleans East is Catholic and there is a very organized church structure. So, when we say we need to do something, everything will be done."

The people of Versailles, which is considered to have the densest population of Vietnamese-Americans in the country, take Nguyen's words to heart. And nowhere else is this more obvious than in the fight to close, and eventually relocate, the Chef Menteur landfill.

Shortly after Mayor Ray Nagin approved the Chef Menteur landfill site, which sits precariously close to Bayou Sauvage and a mile from the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church, crews started dumping tons of storm debris onto the site. Nguyen says it didn't take long to figure out that something was wrong.

"It was being dumped directly into the wetland," Nguyen says. "The underground water there is one to four feet. The pit is thirty feet and water has to be constantly pumped out because groundwater is flowing directly into it."

According to Mary Queen of Vietnam Church spokesperson Susan Do, the site was never properly lined to keep hazard materials and toxins from seeping into the water table. When Nguyen and others realized that water was flowing in and out of the site, they knew something had to be done.

"They argued that it was rainwater," Nguyen says, "but I said 'I live here, we're in a drought.' "

No doubt gaining support from the pulpit during weekend masses, Nguyen mustered his parishioners to stage numerous protests in front of City Hall and petition government and nonprofit agencies to step in on their behalf. After weeks of demonstrations and wrangling with city and state governments, protestors persuaded Mayor Ray Nagin to let expire his previous order that originally opened the landfill. Presently, the landfill remains closed.

Now, the community is working not only to keep the landfill closed to further dumping, but to getting the materials removed from the site completely.

"We've got it closed," says Do, "and the next step is to get them to remove the materials to another site. We're not asking them just to do the same thing in another community, but to at the very least find a site that isn't illegal."

More battles ahead

Though the people of Versailles have coped with both personal hardships and a battle against a potentially hazardous waste site, there is still much to be done. Nguyen is quick to note that while his parish has been successful in executing plans for recovery, often it is at the mercy of others when trying to move forward.

In February, 2006, after soliciting the help of 33 experts from across the country including two architects from Vietnam, Nguyen and community organizers finalized a recovery plan that called for a French Quarter-like district that would incorporate business and residential space. Also in the works was a 300-unit retirement community meant to replace a FEMA trailer park that was constructed since the storm. However, only 68 of the 199 trailers have been filled while the rest sit empty due to what Nguyen sees as an inexplicable refusal to admit needy residents.

"I have over 200 people signed up who are still needing trailers," Nguyen says. "Most of my older people are still floating around and asking me why they are rejected. They have no place to stay…and I don't know why."

Although Nguyen admits that FEMA has been good to him and his parish overall, even seeking them out to offer them assistance, he says that until people can return and the trailers utilized, the recovery plan is put on indefinite hold.

"We need it to fit in the time frame," Nguyen says. "We would be pulling the trailers out in phases and starting to build in phases and we would move the people right into them…but we have trailers, no people."

Nguyen and his parishioners are no strangers to waiting. Although they submitted a request to the city for the exclusive trailer site in October of last year, the paperwork sat on Nagin's desk for over three months. Only when Sen. Mary Landrieu and Sen. Hillary Clinton made a direct plea to the mayor's office did the request gain Nagin's signature.

Construction on the trailer site finally began in January and the park did not open until mid-July, nearly 10 months after the initial request. To make matters worse, the group trailer site is still without a park ranger.

"It's not the act of God that we struggle with, the act of God is done. The problem is the human acts, that is what we struggle with," Nguyen says.

Although the parish of Mary Queen of Vietnam Church and the entire community of Versailles still contend with adversity from all directions, Nguyen is confident that even if left alone in its fight to rebuild, the community will triumph in the end. Walking from the rectory across church grounds, Nguyen points out over the surrounding neighborhood and marvels at the community's progress. Lawns are manicured, roofs are shingled and storm debris is all but nonexistent.

Nguyen recalls what he told Red Cross officials when they wanted to pull out of the area shortly after Katrina, hence revealing the will of a community that refuses to give up.

"When they wanted to leave, I said, 'That's fine. We were here long before you were here, and we'll be here long afterwards as well.' "

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Patrick Strange can be contacted at pstrange@nola.com