University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: February 9, 2006

By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Contributor

Architecture student Nate Cornman says the idea that people who have lost so much can still be so grateful and generous affected him more than anything else he experienced during a trip to the hurricane-ravaged coast of Louisiana over mid-semester break.

UB architecture students clean debris and mud from a storm-damaged home in the town of Chalmette, near New Orleans, while on a recent trip to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
PHOTO: NATE CORNMAN

Cornman, a junior in the School of Architecture and Planning, coordinated a group of 24 volunteers—including 20 fellow architecture students from UB—on a more than two-week trip to provide relief to families whose homes were destroyed in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The students set out Dec. 28 for Slidell, La., a community about a half-hour to the northeast of New Orleans, across from Lake Pontchartrain, where a local church was housing 50-60 relief volunteers. Each day, Cornman and his group traveled from Slidell to Chalmette, seat of St. Bernard Parish and only several miles from the hardest-hit part of New Orleans.

Cornman says floodwaters rose between nine and 14 feet in this neighborhood. Homes were filled with up to 20 inches of mud. Floodwaters and high winds destroyed entire blocks.

Four months after the disaster, the formerly quick drive from Slidell to Chalmette took between one to four hours due to storm damage, traffic jams and a five-mile bridge that was undergoing repair, Cornman explains.

"The side of the highway is still littered with trash, appliances, abandoned cars and boats," he says. "From the moment you wake up in the morning until the time you go to sleep, all you see is hurricane damage. There's no escape from it."

He says he was struck by the true enormity of the disaster when, on the third day, driving down Canal Street in downtown New Orleans, he spotted two military vehicles and a group of soldiers with automatic weapons.

"It was like a Third-World country," he says.

In Chalmette, the group worked with Habitat for Humanity, assisting with clean-up efforts in flood-damaged homes. Cornman says the neighborhood opened to residents only recently, shortly before volunteers arrived. The team from UB was among the first volunteer groups at the site, he adds.

The students worked quickly as a team—each home took about a day to clear of large appliances and other debris. There was no need to learn teamwork on the job because everyone knew one another from frequent late nights in the architecture studio, says Cornman.

Volunteers worked directly alongside homeowners.

"It was tough work physically and emotionally," he says.

Often residents requested that crews keep an eye open for some special object lost in the debris. One of the saddest moments, he recalls, came when his group discovered a broken bag of photographs that a homeowner named Bobby had hoped survived the storm.

But other stories ended in less heartache.

"One of the other families we worked for said that until the time we cleaned their house out, they weren't planning on coming back. But seeing the garbage and the mud gone gave them hope to start rebuilding," he says.

Despite the conditions, volunteers still experienced Louisiana's famous Southern hospitality. Cornman says he could hardly believe the generosity of residents, who often bought volunteers lunch from relief tents or took them out to dinner after a hard day's work.

The students themselves gave generously to finance their project. Volunteers who drove provided at least $340 each—those who flew, more, he says. "I definitely felt it was more important than anything else I could have spent my money on."

In addition, the UB volunteers collected about $1,000 from Western New York businesses and families before they made the trip.

Students were able to use their architectural knowledge a few times, Cornman notes. Several were able to work a few days on one of Habitat's construction projects, and students reported back to relief coordinators with information on homes with serious structural damage, he says. Others brainstormed construction projects with their hosts, who hoped to expand their church to house more workers in years to come.

Cornman returned to Buffalo on Jan. 14 with a greater sense of perspective, he says, as well as a desire to do more to assist others in need. He says he wants to organize a presentation on the experience using the thousands of digital photos and even interviews with residents recorded by the students.

But, he adds, his most powerful memory is one not captured in a photograph. The last people the students assisted were an elderly veteran and his wife.

"We had walked back to the van. That was our last day of work," he says. "The sun was just about to go down and we had to drive back past the house. He (the veteran) walked out to the road and placed his hat over his heart as we drove by. That said it all. I think it was a perfect last view of the trip."

The UB students who traveled to New Orleans with Cornman were Joseph Cengia, Dennis Cook, Anne Elrod, Lauren Giamundo, Laura Karnath, Pat Knapp, Khelly Koomalsingh, Edward Laemmel, Silvia Lee, Dong Li Qu, Dan Mannino, Tetsuya Maruyama, Michael Muldoon, Romina Olivera, Emily Ore, David Ruperti, Robert Szudzik, Steve VanLeer, Stephanie Vito, Sara Witschi and Warren Wong.