NJ Jewish News | A chemist is suited for clean-up after Katrina

by Elaine Durbach
NJJN Bureau Chief/Central

It wasn’t your usual packing list for a week in the Sun Belt: a head to foot “Hazmat” suit, goggles, and a respirator.

But that gear is precisely what facilitated Patricia (Patty) Werschulz’s volunteer efforts last month in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she helped with toxic cleanup work.

The stagnant water left by Hurricane Katrina rendered homes too dangerous for ordinary restoration efforts. But having worked until very recently as a research chemist with a huge pharmaceutical company, Werschulz, 56, had the know-how to help with the massive task.

“I’d been trained to work with hazardous materials and I have my own ‘Hazmat’ suit and equipment,” Werschulz said in a phone interview from her home in Cranford, soon after returning and just hours before leaving on her next adventure, a one-month Torah study program in Israel. “My job has come to an end because of a corporate takeover, and I had this two-week window of free time. I thought, why not go and help?”

She was inspired by an appeal for volunteers she heard in May at the board meeting of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in Washington. A speaker described Tzohar Biloxi, a nationwide effort by members of Conservative congregations to help rebuild the devastated Gulf Coast community. The word tzohar refers to a window, in this case offering a view from a sheltered, intact life into one in dire need of tikun olam, or repairing the world.

The speaker mentioned that not many Jews had been involved and urged people to join the effort, run by the organization Hands On Gulf Coast. Werschulz, a member of the USCJ board and a past president of Congregation Beth-El Mekor Chayim in Cranford, rose to the challenge. She volunteered to help from June 12 to 21.

The situation on the Gulf Coast struck a chord for Werschulz: In 1999, right between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Hurricane Floyd flooded Beth-El Mekor Chayim and damaged the homes of some of the congregants. She said, “I kept remembering how traumatic that was, how shocked we were, but compared to what these people have been through, that was minor.”

At the volunteer center in Biloxi run by Hands On Gulf Coast, she met people of all ages, from high school teens and college students to young working people, and a number like her, in their 50s, there for whatever amount of time they could spare, from a few days to weeks or months. She noted that even those who had come with church groups were not necessarily religious. “They were energetic, hardworking people who felt this was the right thing to do,” she said.

There was — and remains — work in the region for everyone, whatever one’s strength or skill. Each evening, she gathered with the other volunteers to hear people share their experiences and discuss what task they could take on the next day. The jobs ranged from removing mold and gutting homes, to installing sheet rock or roofing, to caring for kids in day camps or for animals at the humane society. Others prepared meals — which Werschulz said were excellent — provided legal services, or helped with the host of social services needed.

Each volunteer was also asked to do at least one work segment taking care of his quarters. Werschulz put in time cleaning bathrooms. “It had to be done,” she said.

Acknowledging limits

Clearing toxic mold was her first priority. Werschulz and a group of other women took on the first floor rooms of a low-income housing project. They tackled it in a four-step process: scraping all the wood surfaces with wire brushes, clearing the shavings with a filtered vacuum, washing the surfaces with a chlorine solution and wiping them dry, and finally wiping them down with a borax-type solution.

At the end of each day, they discarded all the disposable parts of their protective gear at the site, to await safe removal, rather than risk trailing contaminants into their living quarters.

As intrepid as she is, Werschulz gave up on the next task assigned to her — wielding a crowbar and gutting a house. Feeling inept and exhausted, she acknowledged her limits, and switched to an area where she felt she could be more helpful. She is starting law school in the fall — “my second career,” as she calls it — and so it seemed fitting to help publicize the free law workshops being offered to those displaced from their homes. She went door to door through trailer parks with their ranks of identical homes provided by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

What struck her first was the quiet, and the lack of playgrounds. She also noted the residents’ varied responses to displacement. The blank exteriors of some trailers stood in stark contrast to those that had been turned into real homes, with canopies and deck furniture and carefully nurtured gardens.

“Some people are very resilient and they cope well. They take advantage of whatever help they can get, like the free clinics and so on,” she said. “The people who just take life as it is need more prodding.”

On Shabbat, she rested — by going to a synagogue service at the Methodist church building where her group were based. Services were organized by Congregation Beth Israel, the Conservative Biloxi synagogue that was hard hit by the hurricane. To her delight there were familiar faces there, including the president and past president of the congregation, whom she had met at USCJ meetings. They all had Shabbat dinner together. “It was really very haimish,” she said.

Asked about the impact of the whole experience, Werschulz said it had yet to sink in. “But every experience changes you and makes you grow. That’s why one does it,” she said.

And that opportunity for growth is available for everyone, she said, which is why she was making time to talk about it while busily preparing for her next trip. Volunteers are needed for whatever stretch of time they can give, whether it is a day or a week or more; they will also receive food and shelter. “All you need to do is get yourself there,” she said.