At work, staying busy! Danielle Crawford, left, enjoys a moment of humor with real estate coworkers Chrystal Spokane and Richard Freeman.  LA-RFO Photo by Spec. Larry Gleeson. Back to Features

Family, staying busy keeps victim-worker sane, stable
By Dave Harris, public affairs specialist, Louisiana Recovery Field Office

EDITOR'S NOTE: LA-RFO was home to many Orleans natives impacted by the flood, who worked the recovery during the day and then their own recovery in their limited "time off."  This story is a tribute to those who fought the double recovery.


NEW ORLEANS, LA …Danielle Crawford, Real Estate’s administrative assistant, today has a home for sale in the Gentilly neighborhood that, fortunately, was high and dry when homes a block away were flooded.  

She’d park her car on Elysian Boulevard and walk home, dodging stretches of flood waters. Her home was dry, that is, until Katrina, which dealt the home a crippling pummeling of water and wind destruction. A survey team put the damage at 100 percent. This Real Estate contract staffer knows what’s real – or not - about real estate. 

Danielle and her son, Tevin, now 15, were “favored” with an insurance settlement: $2,500 – not exactly putting them on Easy Street, nor on the Big Easy streets. Because she saved every penny she could as a city employee with the aviation board, the Gentilly home was free and clear of a mortgage.  

“I’ve had my home since ’86 and I’ve never had floods; after storms, I never had water past the first step.” Yet the hurricane inundated her home with 6.5 feet of water. Two church groups helped her gut the home. 

“I had just completed renovations the year before, and I didn’t want to go through that aggravation again.” And so by now going into debt, she was able to purchase another home with her sister, Wonda, across the river in Algiers. She had applied for a FEMA trailer but was told there were no more and the contracting company was not sure if FEMA was going to order any more - until three weeks after she was in her new home, the FEMA rep contacted her to see if she was still in need of a trailer. 

The road to stability – what she sought for her son – was mined with gut-wrenching, cavernously rutted potholes. 

“My savings were completely wiped out, but I was able to put a roof over our heads,” Danielle said. 

To dodge the hurricane she, Wonda and Tevin had intended to evacuate to Texas, but they were able to stay instead with relatives in Baton Rouge. When Baton Rouge failed to provide timely schooling, Danielle sent Tevin to stay with a cousin in St. Louis, where he attended a private school for a year before coming home last summer. The school Board of Directors there had arranged for Tevin to attend the $10,000-a-year school for free. 

Meanwhile, Mom sought work in Baton Rouge, which happened to be the early location for the Corps’ Louisiana Recovery Field Office. Just about the time she was able to secure an apartment on a waiting list, after sleeping on a sofa bed and an air mattress,  a temp agency matched her skills with a contractor, and Danielle began work in the RFO there in October 2005. 

“When I first started, we had a staff of more than 100 out working out of disaster recovery centers where residents could sign a right-of-entry for blue a roof,” she said. “We also had call-in centers if people couldn’t make it out, and they could complete their application over the phone. We were really busy with inquiries about ROE for getting blue tarps and with complaints about contractors - some of those would go out and survey the roof, and they didn’t come back. We’d turn the complaint over to the roofing team.” 

Danielle said she was aware of a number of dishonest or unreliable contractors in the early days; however, contractors were confined to specific sectors. Substandard contractors were tracked down and required to go back or another company met the need. Within a short time, dependable companies “caught up and work was done correctly.” 

Having joined the team in October 2005, Danielle had hit the ground running, said Bill Barnes, mission manager Bill said that in acquiring debris sites, speed was pretty important. “The way Real Estate did things was a bit on the edge,” whereas the focus now is working on “shutting down or getting some sort of closure on sites never used or we’re not using anymore – making sure they are returned to the owner” and handling different forms one at a time. 

Moving with the RFO from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, co-workers consider Danielle the go-to person for historical knowledge of the Real Estate mission. 

“If we’re looking for something, Danielle can find it,” Bill said. 

“I knew the mission from the beginning, and I’m pretty much organized,” Danielle said. “It was hard for me learning the acronyms, but I pretty much got it down pat. I’ve seen a lot of people come and go and come back again – it’s like a family.” 

Meanwhile, she waits for someone to purchase her Gentilly home. She had it surveyed and the foundation is still sturdy, she said. Drywall and floors are needed, but it still has its sub floors. “People have been interest in buying it, but when they find out how high insurance is, they say it’s not worth it,” she said. “The next block over is not considered a flood zone area. Mine is.” 

Will it all work out eventually? 

“It has! I cannot stress myself things beyond my control,” she explained. “I can deal with stuff within my control – the other stuff, I cannot let it bother me or hinder me. I learn all this – ha! Life! Katrina has taught me a lot about putting value to things - my life, my son’s life, my sanity, my piece of mind and the people here. They ask, ‘How’s your house,’ and they’re real supportive, so I guess have been getting counseling from them - good therapy.  Everybody here knows everybody like a family.  

“This job has kept me sane. I have yet to grieve over my losses – I’m keeping busy. All the things I had in place pre-Katrina are no longer. My thinking now is one day at a time. I say my prayers every day to protect and guide me and my son. As a single parent I can’t lose my mind. My son is hurting; everything is new to him. I have to stay strong. Things are pretty much back to normal.” 

After what she’s been through and seeing things in perspective, Danielle insists, “Every day is the best day because of the people I’m surrounded by - people from different areas; everybody has a different story, and everybody loves our city. They’re doing everything they can to help citizens get back in their homes and to make life much easier, so every day is a good day. Everyday is memorable. Something new comes up all the time on this mission.” 

Press her to think of any bad moments, and she pauses to reach deep. “When I think we’re getting some kind of progress, [bureaucrats] change things and knock us two steps back. I know first hand that when there’s a problem, it’s not the Corps. Citizens who don’t know any better will say it’s the fault of the Corps of Engineers.” 

With fire in her eyes, she’s adamant. “It’s not!” 

In spite of personal setbacks, she finds humor in her work environment. Adjacent signs identifying the former Real Estate mission manager, Harris Vandergriff, and the attorney – sometimes called General Counsel or Judge Advocate General – misled Danielle, who was unfamiliar with the military-civilian mix in the Corps. 

“For a long time, I thought Harris Vandergriff was a general in civilian clothes,” she said with a chuckle. 

Danielle’s story, her struggles and losses, are a tiny slice of the overall picture. Others fared even worse, she said, and she knew neighbors who lost their lives.  

In trying to get a perspective of the scope of the damage in New Orleans, Bill said he was able to discern the immensity of the devastation “the first time I started from the 17th Street Canal and drove to East New Orleans. Until you’ve done that, you don’t have any idea. The magnitude of the damage is beyond comprehension. I take that drive every two weeks to see how much damage there is and how much stuff there is still to get done. 

And yet he said part of the mission has been completed. “The Real Estate portion of the Rita mission is closed; there is no more Real Estate work on Rita and we are making steady progress on Katrina, getting the paperwork going on the demolition of a bunch of houses, though not as many as we thought. 

“It’s the hardest thing to explain back home that our portion of the mission is ‘about done’ - I don’t know what ‘done’ is when I see thousands and thousands of structures damaged and remaining.” 

Danielle said she hasn’t had time to ponder the future. She hopes to complete her studies at the Southern University of New Orleans in business administration and a minor in criminal justice. 

Having spent some time in an apartment here, she said she hopes the city gets a handle on skyrocketing rent. She paid $770 per month for a two-bedroom apartment she knew to rent for $464 pre-Katrina. She realized quickly that it was “really time to go” when she couldn’t get renter’s insurance. “It made me more adamant about moving out – I would have had to take out some kind of permit for an additional $30 – something the apartment complex owner should have done.” 

Danielle said, “I hope they can get, if not all, the majority of city residents to come back to the state and into the city. I hope the city will become prosperous again and just make it easier for low-, middle- and upper-income people to return.” 

As for her own outlook, Danielle shows no signs of worry and finds contentment in her Corps family, job and comparatively settled home life. 

“I know me and my son are blessed.”