Client  Stories

You know before she starts to talk that it is going to be bad. 
 
She hands the photos over easily. 
 
It's worse.
 
"That's our hallway with two feet of sludge," said Tamara Cash, showing photos that require dialogue, because the viewer can't process them without it.  The photo shows brown sludge covering every item in the room.  Everything is exactly where it settled when the Katrina floodwater receded in September 2005.
 
Cash has not an element of bitterness, or sadness in her voice as she shows the photos of her home in Chalmette, La., inside of now-famous St. Bernard Parish, where 95 percent of the population still hasn't returned since the devastation.
 
It is as if she's talking about someone else, another life, something far away. 
 
In a way, she is.
 
A mother of six, she is medium height, but sturdy, not small.  Her pale complexion is easy to blush under red-blonde hair, but her wide smile comes easily, along with a quiet, not-quite-shy demeanor and southern politeness. Clear eyed, direct and straightforward, Cash has no bitter edge, or harshness that might naturally arise from a difficult life. 
 
She has lived the story of a Katrina survivor.  Having lived it, there is no shock value left and she knows the photos she shows will leave the viewer with information they can't begin to process much less understand.
 
The levees circle the former town with a pre-flood population of 32,000, boarded on one side by the curving Mississippi and the other by Lake Pontchartrain.  It is just two miles from New Orleans.
 
The levee was 17.5 feet high at its peak.
The flood was 20.
 
The photos are not of devastation sanitized by the distance of television, or photos in a magazine.  It is more personal. These are photos of her home.  So many things now gone, and what's not gone is totally useless.  Material possessions collected during a lifetime - baby pictures, keepsakes, family jewelry, a favorite sweater, silverware, pocketbooks  -- have been washed away, or worse ... is still there but ruined under the thick brown waste.
 
"Those are bedrooms, but you can't really see it with the insulation hanging down," Cash continues, but the viewer tilts his head to see mattresses, box springs and a TV smashed together at odd angles.  The ceiling is collapsed.  Drywall and wallpaper hangs, separated from the walls. 
 
One photo shows her husband's work van straddling the 5-foot high fence in the backyard.
 
It gets surreal.
 
Lawn furniture rests easily on the roof of the garage, as if someone gently put it down there to get a better view of a parade.  It is not their furniture, but settled there when the water receded.
 
In the ruins near the front hallway, there is a doll, but the family - 6 boys and Tamara - owned no dolls.  It is in their home, but belongs to some other child ... somewhere.
 
A framed picture stuck perfectly centered on the brick wall in the devastated living room appears to be an instant of normalcy.
 
"Weird," Cash said, casually, her light blue eyes looking directly into yours, "that framed picture isn't ours, is not from our family, and wasn't in the house ... somehow it stuck there."
 
An exterior house shot shows what looks like cracked cement all around the house.  It is a deadly mosaic.


"That's toxic waste from the Murphy oil refinery," she said, as if she was talking about the landscaping, or a garden, very matter-of-factly.
 
The Apocalypse
 
They watched the hurricane on the radar, moving ever closer to their home.  Katrina. 

Living in quiet Chalmette, just five minutes drive from the levee, she worried, but she was new to the area and her husband and his family were used to the threat.
 
"They always say there will be flooding," he said, but Cash decided to take the family out of harm's way. She bought $600 in groceries, stocked the pantry and packed for a few days. 
 
"Honestly, we didn't think there would be that much water," she said.
 
That was August 28, 2005.  They have still not returned.
 
When the in-laws came by to say good-bye, Tamara convinced them to come, saying it would be a "vacation."  She lied and told them she made reservations at a resort for them as well and it was already paid for.  "We actually booked the rooms as we were driving to Florida and prayed that there would be rooms available."
 
"I just had a feeling," she said.
 
The Exodus
 
They packed everything possible into three cars, including six members of the Cash family in their van, two in-laws in a second car, a cousin and his wife and an aunt in the third.
 
The caravan intended to head west to Texas, but roads were backed up, traffic stopped, and police said it would remain that way for 24 hours.  The hurricane was getting closer.
 
So, they headed east, and drove 19 hours to Florida, a family on the run from the worst hurricane to flood that area in recorded history.  They finally made it to Panama City Beach, Fl. The manager of the resort - Boardwalk Beach Resorts -- had already discounted three rooms to $89 a night per room (down from $350).  Tamara just handed over her credit card upon arrival, knowing it was almost all she had.
 
"I cry at everything, but not then," Cash said, remembering scenes where her husband would pace nervously in front of the television broadcasting the disaster as he dialed his cell phone repeatedly - to no avail - in an attempt to contact his ex-wife and son, who also lived in Chalmette.
 
"It was very weird.  We were scared ... terrified really."
 
"They wouldn't show my neighborhood on TV," she said, her blue eyes looking straight into yours.
 
"There were too many bodies floating in the water."
 
There is not an ounce of pity, a wisp of bitterness, just the cold hard facts pouring in a straightforward manner from someone who lived it.
 
Cash found strength she didn't know she had.  When the tension got to be too much, she would organize a trip outside the hotel, or the beach.  They stayed a week before packing again and heading to Logan, Ohio, where the cousins and in-laws stayed.  Tamara and her family headed to Grove City where they planned to stay before heading to Michigan.
  
The Breakdown
 
On Route 270 outside Columbus, the van broke down when the transmission went out.  Tamara called AAA to get a tow, but with credit cards maxed out, and little cash left, the weight of events all hit her full on.
 
Like the levee, her defenses broke and the emotions flooded her heart.  Everything in her world suddenly seemed broken.  Her home was gone, so was her neighborhood, perhaps even, amazingly, her region.  Her husband's business - designing and maintaining swimming pools -- was gone and wouldn't be coming back.  Credit cards were maxed.  Her cash was almost gone.  Family members were missing.  She had thrown some simple belongings into the van, including 6 sons (two autistic) and her husband.    The van took them out of harm's way.
 
Now, that had broken, too.
 
"I just lost it," she said.  "I had been strong through all of the trip, but this was it ..." 
 
Seemingly defeated, Cash wept uncontrollably on the side of the highway.
 
After the tow truck came, her family retreated back to Grove City, wondering what would come next.  What they discovered was an Ohio that most people would only dream existed. 
 
When she tried to leave, she couldn't.  She booked a flight to Michigan.  It was cancelled.  She planned to take the bus instead.   She couldn't get a ride to the station on time.
 
"Maybe," she thought, "God had us here for a reason.  I believe that different situations you get into, God helps you to work through them.  He doesn't put you in bad situations.  He helps you to work through them ... to help others with things they need help getting through.  But you don't know the blessings until you go through the terrible part.  Normally, you wouldn't know the blessings unless they hit you in the face."
 
The Blessings
 
Meanwhile, Central Ohio was a combination of blessings and, quite literally, curses.
 
While the family was without a car, neighbors offered rides.
 
Capital University called and offered a house - free of rent - for a year even though she never knew anyone at Capital.
 
"I don't know how they found me," she said.
 
More blessings came.
A car accident from a few years earlier left Tamara's husband unable to work.  Now, the survival counted on her alone as the breadwinner, supporter and guide for the family on this journey.
 
Central Ohio was becoming more than an outpost, but the news from home always added perspective.
 
Her neighbor across the street in Louisiana - a single mom -- was found under two feet of sludge on Dec. 24, 2005 ... 120 days after the flood.  The neighbor's 13-year-old daughter - perhaps luck, or fate, or a different kind of disaster - left the day before with a car full of teenage boys and Cash wouldn't even know where to begin to look for her, although not knowing at this point how to find an old neighbor is the norm for Katrina survivors.  Eighteen months later, Cash heard the girl was living with her father, but didn't know where.
 
"Someone with Katrina resettlement suggested I go to Jewish Family Services," said Cash, who said, "I can't go there, I'm not Jewish."
 
"I didn't know they reached out to so many people."
 
"Jewish Family Services has been everyone's lifeline in Columbus for the last 100 years," said JFS Executive Director Chuck Weiden.  "Today, the majority of those we help are not Jewish.  It is in our values to serve all."
The JFS ACES II program helps individuals find employment. An eligible ACES II participant is over the age of 18, has minor children living at home and is living at 200% of the Federal poverty level.  Cash attended ACES 4-week program, 5 days a week, 6-hours-a-day. It teaches Life Skills as well as Customer Service Skills.
 
 "I got more out of the life skills portion … budgeting, time management to juggle schedules, proper day care, having the backups when something goes wrong," she said, adding that the part "dealing with grief and loss" was especially helpful.
 
"This program is mainly focused on people on a poverty cycle ... it is trying to teach them that there is a better way than waiting for a $300 welfare check.  It teaches them how to organize, prioritize and budget, so when they do get a job they can hold it."
 
The Curses
 
Tamara did get a job, at TS Tech in Canal Winchester, which is a supplier of parts to Honda.  That brought a much-needed paycheck, but it wasn't easy.
 
"People were cruel.  They made Katrina jokes.  When the next hurricane (Rita) hit New Orleans they told me they were sick of hearing about it.  They'd laugh."
 
Cash, as always, kept her perspective.
 
"I thought ... maybe they didn't know how to handle it."
 
And her family found support in a variety of unexpected places.
 
"In smaller areas of Columbus, Hilliard, Whitehall ... people were nice.  And the kids were more supportive than the adults," she said.  "Where the adults were being rude, kids were reaching out.  Kids at Dublin schools were awesome."
 
Bexley, her "borrowed" home, became an oasis.
 
"People in Bexley were very friendly.  They offered to help in many ways.  Pride prevented (taking) it, but it was nice that they offered."
 
Her first husband sued for custody of the children, stating that Cash had moved without informing him. 
 
The hearing to retain custody conflicted with her work schedule.  She asked for time off.  Her boss said she'd be fired if she went.
 
"Well, I could lose my job, or lose my kids, so that was an easy choice," she joked.
 
She went to the hearing, and then returned to work the next day as if nothing happened, hoping that her absence would be forgotten, or forgiven.  It was not.
 
"They walked me out, I was fired," she said.
 
"I could have been discouraged, but I was encouraged, because through this I had full custody of my children, which I look at it as a blessing."
 
Her family lived on credit cards, until they ran out of credit.
 
Still, Cash found the time to volunteer at JFS, to help others with the ACES program that helped her.  She helped with filing, or anything around the office.
 
Then, a job opened at JFS.  She took it.  She's working full-time there now, even turning down a job that paid $10,000 more to be "with my family" at the Jewish Family Services on Livingston Ave., where she is Continuous Improvement Specialist for the Career and Workforce Development Department, a title perhaps the most appropriate of any.
 
The Constant Gift
 
A few weeks back, Cash was entering a store when a man who had lost a leg rushed ahead to hold the door for Cash and her sons.
 
The perspective - now a great, constant gift, according to Cash  - wasn't lost on the family, which talked about the simple gesture afterwards.
 
"Mommy, he was still trying to be a gentleman, even though he was hurt," said one of her sons.  "We take a lot of things for granted."

That evening they talked about all that they might take for granted.  They were grateful they have two legs to walk on.  They have eyes to see.  They live in a home.  She has a job.  They are together. 
 
"We often play a game called the 'glad game.'   It's where we sit around and tell each other about something that we are glad/happy about.  Like in the movie 'Pollyanna," explained Cash.
 
"If you look at any situation you can always find something good."
 
The gift of perspective allows no blame for any hardship her family endured.
 
"It is not the President's fault there was a hurricane," she said, adding that the U.S. hadn't really ever seen that kind of devastation before.
 
The same could be said for Cash, because no life could really prepare for the kind of personal devastation she endured.  Now, it's every little moment of happiness she's grateful for.
 
"We appreciate everything everyone did for us," she said, even the bad things.  It is always a learning experience.  I'm here for a purpose.  This is part of my training for my real calling. When the time is right, I'll go where God calls me to go."
 
And from one of Bexley's smallest citizens - her name lost among the generosity from an army of unseen donors -- came the biggest reminder, which now sits proudly on the mantle over the fireplace.
 
"The thing that touched my family the most was a picture that a little girl drew at an elementary school in Bexley," she said. 
 
Through the entire discussion, Cash has been dry eyed, but now the tears come. 
 
"It is a family outside a house that sits in sunshine.  It reads: 'Welcome Home.'  No matter where my family ever goes, that will always be on our wall."
 
Mark Wallinger is a former award-winning journalist.