- * Private citizens trying to make 85-year-old, Clothilde
Mack's, Christmas wish of 'going back home' come true. Good samaritans
asking for last minute gas money help, since FEMA has hindered more than
helped Ms Mack get home.
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- By Greg Szymanski
12-23-5
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- The saga of Hurricane Katrina survivor Clothilde Mack
continues, as the private efforts to get her home for Christmas may get
bogged down in St. Louis if needed gas money isn't raised quickly.
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- After FEMA failed for months to provide a temporary mobile
trailer so she could return to her Orleans Parrish home, private citizens
throughout the country united to try and make the 85-year-old New Orleans
resident's Christmas wish come true.
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- Through the efforts of the Republic Broadcast Network,
www.rbnlive.com, its talk show host, Greg Szymanski and the Arctic Beacon,
an internet magazine site at www.arcticbeacon.com, a motor home was provided
to get Ms. Mack home near the Christmas deadline.
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- Despite FEMA"s lackluster efforts and failure to
help those who need it most, citizens of Greene County, Tenn., where Ms.
Mack is temporarily housed, have rallied together to raise gas money for
the 2,200 mile trip from Spirit lake, Idaho, to Tennessee, where the Winnebago
motor home left Wednesday to pick up Ms Mack with the intent to eventually
get her home for Christmas.
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- However, according to the driver, Joe Tittiger of Ft.
Meyers, Florida, who donated his time and efforts to fly across the country
and then drive the motor home to New Orleans, the $800 raised in gas money
will only get him as far as St.Louis due to excess winds in Montana and
exceptionally high gas prices well-over $2.00 a gallon.
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- "If gas prices were normal, we'd have no problem
making it all the way to New Orleans. But as the oil companies are soaking
us, it's only the people like us who suffer and have to pay these high
prices," said Tittiger, adding he was only getting 5 miles per gallon
through the Rocky. Mountains. "Once I get to Highway 70, it should
be clear sailing but the $800 isn't going to be enough. We need help now
to get Ms Mack home."
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- In response to Tittiger's plea, Joe Gillis, an Arctic
Beacon reader and RBN listener, is wiring $100 through Walmart's money
gram program, which Tittiger says is the easiest way to get the money to
him while driving to Tennessee.
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- "I already spent $500 of my own money to fly to
Idaho and I am tapped out so please send some help," said Tittiger.
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- Others who have helped thus far to get Ms Mack home include
Mayor Roger Jones of Greene County, who donated $400; Wendy Owens of Greene
County, who raised $250; Julie Herrill of Albany, New York, who sent $100;
and talk show host, Greg Szymanski, who gave $100 and the use of his Winnebago
motor home. Ms. Mack also is in possession of $300 in last minute emergency
funds, sent by unknown California good Samaritan who heard the RBN radio
broadcast.
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- Ms Mack's story and her desire to go home for Christmas
is starting to get last minute nationwide media attention as the Greeneville
Sun of Tennessee is featuring the story in its Saturday edition and the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch indicated it might be covering the events when
the Winnebago comes through St. Louis.
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- Recently NBC ran a feature news item, documenting how
many New Orleansresidents are facing the sad reality of not being home
for Christmas, citing the fact how thousands of residents have displaced
across the country.
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- However, the case of Ms Mack may provide a glimmer of
Christmas hope for others survivors wishing to be home, if enough money
can raised in the next two days to get the needed gas money for the motor
home.
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- Besides private efforts to raise the needed money, Sen.
Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has been notified of the last minute gas money crisis,
a Washington aide saying the office will try help but wasn't making any
promises.
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- Asked if Sen. Landrieu could lend the extra gas money
needed out of her own pocket, the Washington aide said: "This is going
to sound bureaucratic, but it's difficult to help everyone and there are
procedures that must be followed but I will do my best. We are still working
on getting the FEMA trailer and are aware of the private efforts to help"
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- But thus far Sen. Landrieu and FEMA's efforts to get
Ms Mack the promised trailer and get her back home have been anything but
quick and reassuring, as the elderly survivor has been waiting months for
help but recently found out FEMA actually dropped her case.
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- "They wanted me to sign a paper saying I wouldn't
go home for a year and then they would help me. But When I wouldn't sign
it, they dropped my case," said Ms. Mack this week from Greene County,
where she is temporarily housed in an expensive living facility that has
not been paid yet by FEMA, who is supposed to allocate emergency funds.
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- "The lights are back on in my neighborhood and all
I ever wanted to do is go home. I can't wait till Joe gets here and then
the first thing I am going to do is see if I can find my cats."
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- And Ms Mack is lucky to be alive as she spent 10 initial
days weathering the high waters in her upstairs attic, living on two cans
of greens and three small bottles of water before being rescued.
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- The harrowing story of Ms. Mack's ordeal is one for the
survival record books. It's a story about an elderly woman, having the
strength of 100 men, who miraculously lived for 10 days cramped-up in her
tiny attic like a human sardine as she almost was baked alive in the sweltering
New Orleans summer heat.
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- "I broke a window to get some air when the water
was still very high for the first couple of days," said Ms. Mack in
an extended telephone conversation from her room in a half-way house in
Greene County, Tenn. about 500 miles from New Orleans. "I didn't have
anything to eat up in the attic or any water. After calling 911 until my
cell phone gave out and nobody coming to rescue me, I never thought I was
going to make it. I made peace with everyone and everything, really thinking
I was going to die up there in the attic.
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- "But by the grace of God I made it through those
first couple of days and then the water started going down. I kept calling
for my cats but they didn't come as they didn't make it up to the attic.
I haven't seen them for three months and really don't see how they could
have survived. They were really the only family I had left and I miss them
more and more each passing day."
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- After the water receded and still no rescue workers in
sight, on the third day Ms. Mack literally floated on furniture to her
kitchen where she found two cans of string beans and seven small water
bottles in what turned out to be the extent of her rations for the remaining
eight days.
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- The question remains why no help for 10 long days?
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- "I'll tell you why. The only answer I have is that
the government delayed things on purpose," said Wendy Owens of Greene
County, Tenn., a local resident who has taken on the private responsibility
of trying to help Ms. Mack return to New Orleans despite no help from FEMA.
"First, it was a disgrace and outrage that it took our military and
government so long to get into New Orleans, leaving many people like Ms.
Mack to die.
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- "If our military can get to Baghdad in one day,
why did it take them so long to help people in a major American city? Why?
Maybe the delay was orchestrated."
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- Besides Ms. Mack's ordeal, which Owens claims could have
been avoided, she said her treatment in the last three months by FEMA and
other federal agencies is even a worse disgrace and public embarrassment.
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- After her rescue and being treated at a local New Orleans
emergency center, Ms. Mack was whisked away by airplane to Tennessee without
being told her destination, something she says still makes her angry almost
as much as FEMA's continued lack of proper care and its unwillingness to
help her get back home.
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- "I have been deprived of my medication and nobody
has really helped me get home even though the water is gone and my house
needs repair. I have been lied to by my case worker so many times I can't
even count them all," said Ms. Mack, adding on top of the insensitivity
of her case worker, the FEMA program actually encourages evacuees to stay
out of New Orleans, not return home even in areas that are habitable.
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- "All I ever wanted to do was go back home but they
have been giving me the run-around. My caseworker even lied to me now and
said she never worked on my case. I've gone weeks without my medication
and kept telling them to just send me home."
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- *Editor's Note:* If you can help in any way with gas
money, contact Joe Tittiger on the road at 239-297-4189 for money transfer
instructions or email at arcticbeacon@earthlink.net for a way to reach
Joe. With all of out efforts, we can at least make sure one New Orleans
resident has a Merry Christmas.
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- For more informative articles, go to www.arcticbeacon.com.
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