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We Helped Each Other Out
Glenda Plunkett, Special to Redcross.org
Monday, November 21, 2005 — PEARLINGTON, Miss. – After spending hours in a house battered by 140-mph winds, Thomas Dean, III, emerged to find he was standing in the eye of Hurricane Katrina. He could see a wall of water 15 feet high coming at him – it was the backside of the storm.
Thomas Dean, III, with one of the dogs that survived Katrina in front of his destroyed home in Pearlington, Miss.
(Photo Credit: Glenda Plunkett/American Red Cross)
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Dean struggled to high ground through neck-high water grasping a chain link fence. He fought his way to his neighbor’s boat, dove underwater with a pocket knife and cut the boat free from its trailer.
Meanwhile he yelled to his wife to get out of their home. She and their two dogs were trapped inside. He could see the water at ceiling height; never before had the house been touched by water.
She managed to kick out a window and swim to safety. She clung to a Magnolia tree for survival until her husband rescued her in the boat, then helped her to the safety on the roof.
Thomas once again dove into the water. He swam inside the house where he cut the Venetian blind cord and used it as a makeshift leash to get his dogs out. He placed them on top of the house as well. There they were trapped on the roof for the next 12 hours as the back side of the storm continued to pelt the Dean family.
As soon as the storm subsided, Dean did what he does every day; he helped his neighbors. Being a volunteer fireman he went to the fire station, there he found that the storm had claimed all of the equipment.
More and more residents came to the fire station. Dean went into the community and gathered food, including milk for an eight-month-old infant. Feeding people from a community pot, the residents found comfort with one another over the next three days.
“I am no hero. I did what I had to do,” Dean said humbly. “The way it came together, we helped each other out. Everybody had a talent. This brought out the best in people.”
Dean talked about one instance, on the third day when he came upon a deep freezer tossed by the storm. He broke the lock on the freezer, and the meat inside was still cold. The bounty collected from within made a barbeque feast for at least 30 residents that evening.
Soon the American Red Cross arrived, supporting the local shelter and delivering hot meals throughout the town each day. The red and white emergency response vehicles were a welcome sight where food had become so lean. While the Deans said that the people of Pearlington could have survived, “the Red Cross relieved a great burden with their deliveries of food and supplies.”
Glenda Plunkett is with the Mid-Illinois Chapter of the American Red Cross. She is a member of the Red Cross Rapid Response Team currently deployed to Biloxi, Miss.
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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