From helplessness to hope

When Katrina stormed through the states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana on August 29, 2005 her 145-mph winds and 20-40-foot storm surge left 1,200 dead and flattened entire towns in their wake, writes Roshan Rivetna in FEZANA Journal (Fall 2005). While 14 Zarathushti families were variously affected with lost homes, jobs and belongings, life was totally spared and with the help and comfort provided by fellow Zarathushtis and other Americans they have now reverted to the tasks of rebuilding.

Tales of the hardships they faced make riveting reading, for their distress, as much as the experience of those who came to their aid, marked a saga of upliftment and compassion in our crass materialistic world. While FEZANA (Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America) and member associations in the neighborhood assisted individuals of goodwill help rebuild shattered lives, the usual community feuds took a backseat. The following Parsiana report is culled from Rivetna’s in-depth coverage.

Most of the Zoroastrian residents of New Orleans and the neighboring towns of Metairie and Kenner were among the more than a million people who had heeded the warning to evacuate voluntarily. There were those nevertheless whose work, largely as healthcare professionals, had them riveted to their jobs unto the bitter end. These were Dr Mehr Mirabadi, and Rukhshana and Cyrus Rastegar, both nurses.

Mirabadi, in his 13th floor office at the Charity Hospital in New Orleans witnessed the wind and rain breaking windows, ripping ceiling tiles, scattering papers and documents as a moat of murky water, 15 feet deep, enveloped the building below, flooding the basement, knocking out the utilities located there. With little sleep, no communications, showers or fresh clothes – he is said to have used bedsheets and a stapler to make a shirt – he and the hospital staff helped first carry critical dialysis, cardiac and respiratory patients to the second floor auditorium which had backup generators, then evacuated the most critical patients down the stairs to rescue boats and thence to a staging area near the Superdome. It was Friday, when all the patients had been evacuated, that the hospital employees were taken by rescue boat and school buses to the airport where such bedlam prevailed that they had to be detoured to a Red Cross shelter in Baton Rouge. A chance ride to Houston and thence to refuge in a friend’s house in Dallas ensured his personal safety. When he returned to his home in Metairie, he found the house unlivable, his belongings beyond salvage, but is grateful to the Zarathushtis of New Orleans, Houston, Dallas and FEZANA for helping him face the challenges of rebuilding his life from scratch.

Cyrus had been on duty at the high-rise Tulane Medical Center in downtown New Orleans from the preceding Friday and was called to attend at the two-storeyed Chalmette Medical Center on Sunday. By noon on Monday the first floor was submerged in 20 feet of muddy water. "Boats and cars were being flung around like toys.” There were five casualties by the time help arrived on Wednesday. Cyrus helped evacuate about 300 patients, and , as a single male, was among the last to leave for a two-hour drive to a shelter in Lafayette.

Rukhshana went to work on Sunday morning at the Tulane where she found herself helping evacuate 350 patients to a garage roof whence they were picked up by rescue helicopters. It was Friday by the time the Tulane staff were taken by helicopter and coach to Lafayette.

While the mother and son were strapped to their jobs, father Bakhtyar Rastegar, a former NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) engineer now on disability, and their younger son Zubin left food out for their dogs, Ginger, a Pekinese and Mickey, a Maltese, late on Sunday night and found a hotel inland on Monday. Bakhtyar recalled, "Day turned into night. My son and I felt the power of the Almighty, angry God. The sound, the rain, black clouds, humongous mushroom rings… We were praying.” Driving out the following day, they arrived in Austin on Wednesday night and were helped by kind strangers to locate a small apartment and contact the Zarathushtis in Austin, Houston and FEZANA.

The family, spread in three different places, were united when Cyrus, on the lookout for his mother, located her in a hospital shelter watching TV. They flew out to New York where, from her sister Freny Sagar’s home they were able to connect with Bakhtyar and Zubin in Austin. When mother and son made the long trip home two weeks later, they found all vegetation dead and gray, caked sludge a foot deep and smelt the acrid smell of mildew and death. Their biggest regret had been the abandoned dogs. But there they were on the bed, weak, frail, covered with mold and close to death, but holding out.

The family reunited in Bakhtyar’s flat in Austin before Cyrus moved on to a job in California.

Rohinton and Armin Tarapore and their son Arshish, Meher and Hormazd Banajee, Minoo and Niloufer Bhujwala, Maneck and Dr Farrokh Contractor, Dr Homeyar Dinshaw and Ayesha, the latter’s grandparents Homi and Veera Thunthy, Nawzer and Kitty Parakh, Jeroo Sidhva and her son Farhad, Nozar and Villi Sachinvala, Shirin Dastur, Adil and Nina Eduljee and their son Noshir, Burzis Kanga and his nephew Cyrus Kanga, Pesi and Shahnaz Umrigar and their son Cyrus were all uprooted by the storm and found solace and shelter with friends and relatives.

Despite being an evacuee himself, Rohinton Tarapore, chair of the New Orleans Zarathushti group, formed an e-group and made contact with most of the approximately 40 community members of the area. "His regular e-mail updates kept everyone informed of the day-to-day whereabouts of the displaced families and helped the group stay connected,” writes Rivetna.

When the scale of the disaster was realized, FEZANA president Firdosh Mehta sent out an appeal which quickly netted $10,000 for the Disaster Relief Fund. FEZANA welfare committee member Freyaz Shroff and cochairs Houtoxi Contractor and Hosi Mehta established contact with the victims and disbursed funds and items required along with much needed emotional support. With a toll-free confidential helpline (1-877-265-7273) purportedly established to help domestically battered families, they helped reach from across the continent to coordinate aid givers and receivers. "Please know, as is the case with all welfare issues, our work is confidential, but it in no way means we are not present,” they note in the FEZANA Journal.Vice president Bomi Patel sent sudrehs and kustis.

The Zoroastrian Association of Atlanta and the Zoroastrian Association of North Texas offered shelter and relocation assistance. Offers of housing came even from far away New York and Florida. But it was the Zoroastrian Association of Houston (ZAH) which provided immediate relief and support. Yasmin and Shapur Pavri, and Avan and Jehangir Shroff hosted several families each. Behram Yazdani offered apartments in his complex to needy Zarathushtis, and Feroze and Shernaz Bhandara, owners of Catalina Apartments, accommodated nearly 500 evacuees from the thousands sheltered in the Houston Astrodome in their vacant apartments. To make these vacant apartments livable the Zarathushtis of the area brought anything and everything required to set up an empty apartment.

"It is phenomenal how caring we Zarathushtis can be as a community when the need arises. The full community came together at the ZAH center and made a difference! It was unbelievable to see the look of amazement on the faces of these folk when they saw that even we, foreign looking folk, cared for them and felt their pain. That was a return you cannot even get from the best of your investments,” former FEZANA secretary Arnavaz Sethna quotes WZCC (World Zarathushti Chamber of Commerce) vice president Homi Davier.

In the grateful words of the Rastegar family, "This world needs people like you who are willing to reach out with compassion.”