Family celebrates return of their miracle worker
Published: November 23, 2005
It may have looked like a typical family dinner at the Old Country Buffet in Annapolis, but the Gibbs party of 14 came to celebrate the return of their “miracle worker.”
Julie DeVaughn of Crofton spent 32 days in Louisiana as a FEMA volunteer for Hurricane Katrina relief. [Time: Hurricane Katrina : The Storm That Changed America]
She returned home Thursday.
On Saturday Ms. DeVaughn’s parents, Joseph and Phyllis Gibbs, organized a surprise family party to honor her work in New Orleans and to celebrate her 41st birthday that passed while she was out of town.
Shortly after the hurricane Ms. DeVaughn’s employer, the Internal Revenue Service, gave employees the chance to leave work to volunteer with Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“The opportunity was there and I really like to help people and to be hands on, so I went for it,” said Ms. DeVaughn. “I knew it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
A little more than two weeks after she applied with FEMA, she was on a plane headed for the most shocking and traumatizing scenes she had ever witnessed. She received one day of training before she left and immediately began working when she arrived.
Ms. DeVaughn spent the first three days in Baton Rouge, but was then deployed to New Orleans for the next 29.
Ms. DeVaughn visited the most devastated areas, including the Lower Ninth Ward, which is known as the “wrath of God” among workers. She recalls seeing corpses and hundreds of coffins that had been displaced from cemeteries. Cars, dead cows, clothing and children’s toys alike were stuck in tree tops.
“It was very difficult to see people’s personal belongings scattered about,” she said.
Where homes once stood remained nothing but ruined foundations. Many homes that were still upright were marked with an “X” to signify that people had died in that home.
“When the levees broke the force of the water picked up everything in its path. It is something that no words or pictures will ever be able to describe,” said Ms. DeVaughn. “You can watch it on TV, but you have to see it to believe it because it is just that bad.”
She worked 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week in the command center at the Port of New Orleans. Ms. DeVaughn’s responsibility was to address the severe housing demand. [Organize for Disaster]
She evaluated sites for trailer construction, worked with contractors to ensure that each unit was up to code and made certain that each trailer was fully equipped for occupation.
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