Salon helps women look, feel good after disaster
Published: September 7, 2005
Patricia Morgan sat in the salon chair talking with Natasha Redmon about her family, which was evacuated to Texas, about the nights she slept under a bridge in New Orleans and about the strength she gained from her experiences over the past week.
It had been nearly two months since Morgan, 40, last went to a hair salon.
She sat with a group of about 10 others at Wyomie & Naomi Beauty Salon, 525 San Pedro Blvd. N.E., getting pampered by stylists who scrapped their Labor Day plans to help those in need.
“I’ve never been to a hairdresser that will do your hair for free, feed you and make you comfortable,” Morgan said.
Redmon, 31, heard about the efforts at the salon and decided to help, even though she hadn’t styled hair in about six years, she said.
Feeling helpless after watching victims in New Orleans on TV reports, Redmon thought volunteering her time Monday would be a way to show her support.
“It’s tangible now,” she said. “Clothes are good, food is good, water is good - but that doesn’t help the emotion or how they portray themselves. It’s a small way of saying I care.”
Redmon said her job is to help the women in the salon feel better about themselves and their experience by helping them look better on the outside.
Salon owner Naomi Mosley was on her way to Edgewood for a Labor Day picnic when she got a phone call. Khadijah Bottom and Joella Redmon, who were coordinating the effort, commissioned Mosley to offer her shop and her services for a couple of hours.
While Mosley was busy putting extensions into 37-year-old Linda Jackson’s hair, others were getting the same kind of indulgence.
“I ain’t never got no treatment like this before,” Jackson said.
Behind Mosley and Jackson, Rose Lewis, owner of Rosedell Beauty Salon, 130-B Jackson St. N.E., was treating Samantha Caldwell’s hair with a perm.
From straightening to curling from dyeing to cutting, the salon buzzed with activity.
Lewis said she received a phone call from Mosley in the morning, and at about 1:30 p.m. they started working.
“I feel that this is a very worthwhile cause,” Lewis said. “My pastor said that it’s their turn now, but you never know when it’s going to be our turn. This is a time to pull together.”
Caldwell, who is still searching for her fianc?, whom she last saw the Sunday of the storm, said God is getting her through her ordeal.
“Everything happened so fast,” Caldwell said. “I really don’t know (what I’m going to do). I never had a plan.”
Caldwell, like many of the 92 evacuees who checked into the Albuquerque Convention Center, did not plan for the chaos that followed Katrina.
Annette Macklin, 43, arrived at the convention center Monday afternoon after a two-day drive from Alexander, La., with seven family members.
Macklin, who was working at the Jefferson Healthcare Nursing Home in New Orleans when the hurricane hit, was able to avoid the worst of the flooding, though her home was not quite so lucky.
“The whole thing is under water,” she said.
Macklin’s two daughters, ages 19 and 11, have asked when they can go back home.
“They don’t understand; there is no home,” she said.
While Macklin was able to bring most of her family with her to Albuquerque, her 23-year-old son, who was recovering from gunshot wounds in Charity Hospital last week, could not make the trip.
“The hospital was under three or four feet of water,” Macklin said. “He was transported to Pasadena, Texas.”
She is hoping the Red Cross will be able to reunite the two and that she could settle in Albuquerque, at least for a couple of months, she said.
“There will never be a New Orleans anymore,” Macklin said.
The Red Cross is trying to set up each evacuee in the home of a volunteer family or possibly even a home of their own, Bottom said.
They’re also working on finding jobs for people who plan to stay, she said.
On Sunday, organizations were inundated with calls from people who wanted to help.
With only about 60 evacuees at the convention center, the need for onsite donations is dyeing, Red Cross spokeswoman Kathy Komoll said.
“We’ve actually been overwhelmed with support from the community,” Komoll said.
Though the city is on standby for up to 1,000 more evacuees, it is uncertain whether they will come, she said.
On Sunday, Gov. Bill Richardson signed an executive order that would allow for up to 6,000 evacuees to be sheltered throughout the state of New Mexico.
It is unclear how much money the state will provide to take care of necessities for the evacuees, said Tim Manning, director of the state Office of Homeland Security.
Nor is it clear if money will be reimbursed, Manning said.
“The governor sent a letter to the president on Sunday requesting 100 percent reimbursement,” Manning said. “We’ve received confirmation that the letter was received, but we haven’t heard from the federal government” about reimbursement.
Meanwhile, organizations are busy assessing the needs of evacuees and talking with Albuquerque Public Schools about enrolling children, Komoll said.
Archbishop Michael Sheehan said he had received a phone call from a person who was willing to pay the tuition for evacuees who were attending Catholic school before the hurricane. Funds would be donated to Catholic Charities of Central New Mexico and doled out to those who needed it, he said.
The Red Cross also was busy working with the State Department of Health, supplying vaccinations and medications and planning both short-term and long-term shelter needs of each person, Komoll said.
Back at the beauty salon, Morgan pondered her next step.
“I just want to take it one day at a time,” she said. “I don’t have nothing. I need to get me straight first.”
Her hair was almost complete and another evacuee approached her with an assortment of lipsticks.
Morgan grabbed a tube and delicately applied it to her lips.
The magenta color brightened her face, and she smiled in the mirror.
“It’s classy,” she said. “I can go show off now.”
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