The wreckage of huge metal billboard columns still line I-10.
January 10, 2006
Hello Everyone—
Here’s an update on the efforts we’ve been making to help the horses and people affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Thanks to all of you who are keeping us going with donations and encouragement. Lots of things happen that make this effort seem impossible to continue, and then, somehow, things work out. The latest example is that with money so tight after the holidays and the cost of feed so high, we were having trouble buying enough feed to take into Mississippi. At the same time, our local feed store owner told us he was closing due to problems he’s having. That meant we couldn’t get the Seminole feed we like to use for our horses. This was a particular blow to us because, a few years ago, we worked so hard to arrange to have the feed we wanted available in our area. It was especially ironic that we were now hauling feed into Mississippi, when we weren’t going to be able to get our own!
Not surprisingly, Pete rescued us by arranging to take over the Seminole orders until a new dealer could be found. This solved not only our own feed problem, and those of our neighbors who are hooked on the stuff; it also made it possible for us to procure feed at cost to take into Mississippi. That meant we could take more feed for the money—and an excellent feed at that. It’s a lot of work for Pete—in part because of the problems of storage. We have to meet minimum order requirements to get the feed at cost, and to accommodate all that feed, we unload part of the semi-truck into a borrowed station, and bring part of it to the farm to store. Then the trailer has to be loaded. So, this means Pete has to load and unload the feed several times, never mind handling all the order requirements.
But, with that problem solved, we pulled out early on the morning of the 10th, carrying a ton and a half of feed and a ton of hay. We had piled 20 bags in the bed of the pick-up truck, betting it wouldn’t rain. But when we pulled into the Love’s at Loxley, we noticed the parking lot was wet and puddly. A worker there told us it had been raining off and on all morning. So, while the diesel pump did its work, Pete and I stuffed the 20 bags from the truck bed into the trailer. “I hope somebody’s there to help us unload,” Pete said wistfully.
On the way in, we noticed that the orange trash bags that were lining the highway like large pumpkins, had been taken away, and the berm was cleaner than we had ever seen it. On the other hand, there are still huge signs collapsed along I-10, and, in Waveland and Lakeshore the debris piles that line the roads are higher than ever. It seems that a sort of bedrock decision point has been reached by many folks. They’ve stopped thinking they might salvage their utility shed, or their car or boat, or garage, or house, and now it’s been bull-dozed and pushed to the side of the road to make way for whatever comes next.
When we arrived at Kenny Ray’s, I had to pull my rig up short because Kenny’s flatbed truck was backed up to the stalls where the hay and feed is stored. On the truck were several pallets of feed, wrapped in plastic in case of more rain. “I see you got your truck working again,” I said to him.
“Yeah, it’s a little rough,” he said. “Need to get the carburetor out.” Kenny said he’d gotten the feed from one of the feed stores north of The Kiln. “They only knocked 50 cents off the price,” he said, “but, we had to have it.” It made me very glad we had been able to bring in a full load. A man we had not seen before introduced himself as Wayne Luxich, Kenny Ray’s first cousin. After we all chatted for a minute, Kenny said, “Let me move this truck out so you can get in here.”
But, of course we couldn’t resist feed to be unloaded! “No, no,” we wailed. “Let’s take it off the truck while you’ve got it right here. There’s more rain coming!” Pete jumped onto the flatbed and began tearing off the wrapping.
“Watch your head!” Wayne warned, because the truck was parked half in and half out of the barn. Pete stood up carefully, and, reaching up, began picking weeds and silt off the top of the barn-door frame—nine or ten feet from the ground.
“Look at this,” he said, holding out a handful of the stuff. “That’s drift,” said Wayne. “Left behind by the flood.” Pete pointed out the line high up on the wall where the water had reached. “It’s a tough old barn,” Wayne said. “I was raised right down the road here. I helped Kenny Ray build this place. We been doing things together all our lives.”
I noticed that he was favoring his right arm and asked him how he had hurt himself. “Right before the storm I had one little piece of molding left on the house and I jumped up to put a nail in—the stepladder went out from under me and I come down on a countertop.” He reached for one of the bags of feed that Pete had placed near the edge of the truck.
“Let me do that,” said Kenny Ray. “You’ve got a bad arm.”
“I’ve got a good one, too,” Wayne said, and lifted the bag down onto the pallet Kenny had placed on the floor. “I want to help.” It was a sentiment we have heard many times in the last few months.
I told Wayne I’d recently broken my shoulder and three ribs. “I thought I was gonna die,” I said. He nodded. “It happened at eleven o’clock that morning,” he said. “At five o’clock that evening I was still waiting in the emergency room. And the doctor finally come and it was hanging way down here.” (He motioned at about elbow height.) “And he decided he’s gonna start to pull it back in place. He’s a big old muscle-bound boy—a weight lifter—and he got to pulling on me and I said you’re gonna have to shoot me or something. And then it took a week before they even operated on me. When the storm hit the doctor, he disappeared. I finally found a doctor in Slidel and I still can’t raise my arm up. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I was going to therapy twice a week, but it did about as good as nothing so I said heck with it. By the time they got through twisting and pulling I was drippin’ wet with sweat.”
As we unloaded, Wayne told us about his years working on an oyster boat. “We brought them up with a dredge,” he said. “Crabs, flounders, sting rays, pottery. All kinds of things would come up.” He had a house down the street toward the beach, but he’d moved out a year before and wasn’t there when the storm completely destroyed it. The insurance company gave him $3,100.00 for it.
When the flatbed was empty, Kenny Ray moved it and I backed our rig in and we unloaded it. Wayne said, “Glad they don’t have the hundred-pound feed sack anymore, hunh?” Then he motioned for me to load a second bag on his (good) shoulder. “Put one more on there,” he said.
Pete joked, “Kenny Ray’d probably say ‘Put four more on there.” And Wayne replied, “I bet Teresa can haul more than Kenny Ray. She is strong, I’m telling you, truly.”
I told Wayne and Kenny about all the exercise Pete has been getting moving feed bags. “We even had to move 20 bags on the way over here this morning ‘cause it was starting to rain,” I told them. “Where’s Eddie when we need him? Where’s Aaron?” Kenny Ray shook his head. “Nobody wants to work,” he said woefully. “I can’t find anybody who’ll work for good money.”
Kenny told us he had gotten the $3 a bag for the feed we brought last time and $3 a bale for the hay. With care and pride, he wrote me a check to help pay for more feed and hay. I had to talk him out of putting in extra money for the diesel. “We’ve got that covered,” I said. “Put it into getting the store up and running.” I told him it was nice to know that people were getting back on their feet enough to be able to pay something toward the feed. I could tell he was happy to be contributing and getting his business geared up. I was happy too. It’s what we’ve been hoping for and trying to help him accomplish.
Kenny showed us the progress on the building that will house the feed store. It was cleared and cleaned of the piles of debris that we had seen on previous visits. It’s a large space with plenty of room to store feed. “I’d hoped I’d have the roof on when you got here,” he said. He pointed to the piles of tin roofing lying beside the building.
“Next time,” I answered.
“I’m not going to worry about rebuilding the front right now,” he said, referring to the much larger part of the building that was more severely damaged. I’m gonna’ fix my house first. You know how much the insurance company offer me for my house?”
“How much?”
“Thirty-one hundred dollars.”
“That seems to be the going rate, huh?” We had been in the house, which had to be gutted down to the foundation and a skeleton of two-by-four studs. Some of the outside walls of brick had even been moved precariously by the flood.
“I’m gonna appeal it,” he said.
We talked about some of the other low insurance claims we had heard about. “They’ll find some way to get out of it,” Wayne said.
Kenny said the insurance company had given him quite a bit more for his barn, but not nearly what it would cost to rebuild it. Furthermore, in the hurry of filling out insurance forms, using flooded-out cars for desks and without electricity, he had forgotten to put a lot of his inventory on the forms—his trucks, for instance, which he is still in the process of having repaired and which are the lifeline of any feed business. And, just before the storm he had bought several thousand dollars of feed and hay, all of which was ruined, and which he forgot to claim.
We told him about our own feed problems and how we had solved his and ours at the same time. “Now we’re able to buy twenty to twenty-five percent more for the same money,” Pete said.
“You put us in the feed business, Kenny Ray,” I said. We all laughed.
We headed out as darkness and a light rain were falling.
The highlight of our trip home was a stop at the Olive Garden where we used gift cards we’d gotten in the past and never used. Nothing like a yummy dinner on a dreary night. Thanks always to our friends who feed us!
And this week there was another surprise—this one in the mail box. It was a letter from Governor Jeb Bush.
I don’t know how the governor found out about our efforts. If someone of you out there passed the word along, thank you. I’d like to tell the Governor someday that I appreciate his letter, but it should have been addressed to all the horse owners of Florida and our friends everywhere who have made possible our relief efforts.
In fact, I had a message from Peggy Creadon the other day. I met Peggy the first time I went into Mississippi. We answered the distress call from the fire marshall in Pearlington, and got to know each other while rescuing dogs, watering cows, hunting horses. I called her back and we chatted for awhile. She was surprised to find out that I was still taking feed into Mississippi. “I had no idea,” she said. “How can I help.” I told her our funds were dwindling, but that the need was greater than ever right now, because of the hay being so scarce. “Send me a flyer,” she said. “I’ll get the word out down here.” (Peggy hails from the Sarasota area.) It’s just one of many, many examples of how we keep going when it seems the end is here. Someone picks up the ball and carries it forward, and we see a way to make one more trip.
I wish every one of you could have the sense of accomplishment I felt when Kenny Ray handed me that check. For some reason, seeing him haul out his big check book, prop it open on the hood of his truck, fill in all the blanks, and sign his name felt like the signing of some historical treaty. It was just a small transaction, a very commonplace transaction. But I couldn’t help thinking of all of you, whose faces he’s never seen, whose names he’s never heard, but who he feels a profound sense of obligation to. He is not a man who takes obligation lightly. To be beholden to anyone is, for Mr. Ladner a bond, a contract of honor. It is important to him to be worthy of your trust, and to repay it with hard work and honest dealings. That’s who he is, and I wish you all could know him. I know he would really like all of you.
Thanks to Lola Latson, Grace Jaye, and all of you who have donated, written encouragement, sent information, or wished us well.
Carry on!
Cheers,
Sara Warner
Please continue to donate what you can by sending checks to
Sara Warner at 1939 Sand Basin Road, Grand Ridge, FL 32442.
Or email me if you have items you would like picked up.