Navajo volunteers head to Gulf Coast to help with cleanup

Members of the Navajo Nation Region Tribal Civilian Community Corps program left Tuesday to drive to New Orleans and assist with the on-going clean up of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The corps members are scheduled to return Feb. 2, 2006. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — As of Dec. 6, the 100-day anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in Louisiana Aug. 29, some 53 million cubic feet of debris have be removed from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Although it's been more than a month since that inauspicious anniversary, there will be plenty of debris left for the team of Navajo volunteers that will arrive in New Orleans Thursday to lend a modest but valuable hand in the massive recovery effort.

The 10 volunteers, coming out of high school or college, and their two chaperones all hale from the reservation. They're part of the Navajo Nation Region Tribal Civilian Community Corps, a branch of AmeriCorps based in Many Farms, Ariz.

Roxanne Begay, a project manager for the Corps and one of the chaperones, said FEMA notified the group of its Katrina clean-up tour back in October, when the current batch of volunteers first showed up for their 10-month stint. The exact dates of their trip didn't arrive until late last month.

"First they told us we were going to Cameron," Begay said.

A town of less than 2,000 people, Cameron sits a few miles inland from the Gulf Coast and a little east of the Texas-Louisiana state line, in between where Hurricane Katrina and less than a month later Hurricane Rita came ashore. Though there would be plenty to do in Cameron, it didn't quite capture the group's imagination like New Orleans, whose reconstruction likely to take years, even decades, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars has spurred a heated national debate.

It was only Monday, Begay said, that they got the news that they'd be heading to the Crescent City itself.

Though taciturn when they showed up at The Independent's offices Tuesday morning on the first leg of their road trip to New Orleans, the volunteers, said Wayne Claw, the Community Corps' program director, were excited about its mission. They've gone through 200 hours of training and sat through videos of the Corps' missions in years past to Florida, San Diego and Houston.

"They're excited from all of that, they want to go see all that for themselves," said Claw.

"They say it still smells there," said Ryan Dedman, who was nonetheless exited about visiting a new part of the country.

"The traveling, that's what I'm mostly excited about," agreed Kimberly Yazzie. "I'm glad for that."

The volunteers had to earn their spots on the van and truck they're taking to New Orleans. The 10 volunteers making the trip, Begay said, were whittled down from a group of 30 based on their performance since October and on which of them had finished the required training.

They're taking most of what they'll need with them, from axes and chain saws to helmets and gloves to uniforms adorned with the group's own logo.

They almost left a little too light, however. It wasn't until they hit Ganado that they realized one of them had forgot a bag of clothes in Many Farms. Most of the group stayed put while a few of them headed back to get it.

They expect to be back in Many Farms Feb. 4.