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Finding Romance in the Chaotic Aftermath
Written by
Janet Rae Brooks
, Special to Redcross.org
Friday, November 18, 2005 — NEW ORLEANS – They met in a shelter over a trash barrel of laundry and dined on leftovers at a fire station on their first date.
Shanna Hamm is an Americorps volunteer with the American Red Cross whose New Orleans home was left uninhabitable by Katrina, and P.J. Junek is a firefighter.
Hamm evacuated to Covington, La., on Aug. 27, two days before the storm hit.
On Aug. 28, she was assigned to help manage a shelter in the Sixth Ward, where she spent the next 11 days. She was pumping an inverted broom up and down to agitate the laundry she was doing for an incapacitated shelter resident, when the fire department arrived to hook up a hose to a well to provide water for the shelter.
"Previously, we 'd been siphoning water from a creek to flush toilets," Hamm said.
That's when Junek came over to ask her out for dinner.
They chatted a few more times when Hamm went to the fire station for an evening shower, and then Junek started waiting up for her.
When a late shift caused Hamm to stand him up one evening, her fellow shelter workers insisted that she leave a long staff meeting the next night in order to meet him on time for dinner.
Hamm and Junek ate their sloppy Joes, leftover from an emergency response vehicle (ERV) food distribution, in one of the offices at the fire station.
They'd planned to meet again the following night, but Hamm was reassigned that morning to Covington. On her first day off since Katrina struck, they had their first real date at the Outback Steakhouse in Covington.
Hamm graduated from the University of New Orleans last May, started volunteering at the Southeast Louisiana chapter of the Red Cross in June, and then joined the Americorps program on Aug. 15. Katrina struck two weeks later.
Hamm was promoted to shelter manager during her second week on the job. She also has driven an ERV, handled warehouse inventory and staffed client phone lines at the chapter. She now is processing staff in-and-out of the New Orleans disaster relief operation.
She recently salvaged her remaining possessions from her New Orleans home and moved them to Junek's home in Pearl River, north of Slidell, La.
"I have nowhere else to go," she said.
Hamm and Junek somehow managed to find romance in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"My sister told me, 'Only you can find a boyfriend in a hurricane’," said Hamm, whose newfound relationship with Junek gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "whirlwind romance."
All American Red Cross disaster assistance is free, made possible by voluntary donations of time and money from the American people. You can help the victims of thousands of disasters across the country each year, disasters like the Midwest ice storms, by making a financial gift to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, which enables the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to victims of disaster. The American Red Cross honors donor intent. If you wish to designate your donation to a specific disaster please do so at the time of your donation. Call 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish). Contributions to the Disaster Relief Fund may be sent to your local American Red Cross chapter or to the American Red Cross, P. O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013. Internet users can make a secure online contribution by visiting www.redcross.org.
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