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Friday, September 16, 2005
La Cienega Couple Opens Home to New Orleans Friends
By Kathaleen Roberts
Journal Staff Writer
As John Ibert swam through the toxic gumbo that covered the streets of New Orleans, he saw bloated bodies and people forced from their cars at gunpoint.
"A policeman came up to me, and he started crying," the 27-year-old Ibert said. "He said, 'Go to the Whole Foods store and steal your food. You have to save yourself.' ''
After a harrowing journey through the drowned city to find his father, Kenneth,, John and five members of his uprooted family came to New Mexico to stay with their friends Vioma and Alfonso Trujillo.
Four days ago, John, his wife, Dea, 37, and their children Raven, 13, and Dante, 6, watched the family's 125-year-old Greek Revival home burn to the ground on TV.
"It's where we go to (celebrate) Mardi Gras" parties, he said softly. "That was like the end of our name in that city."
As the hurricane hit on Aug. 29, John and Dea left their Uptown apartment near the Carrollton area for the family homestead in the city's Garden District. Kenneth stayed behind to check on his house and his blind neighbors in the Gentilly area.
As Katrina roared, the chandeliers in the family's old home rocked, and the guard rails framing the second-floor balcony buckled and crashed. Outside, 100-year-old oak trees snapped to the ground like kindling.
"It sounded like a train," Dea said.
The family survived the onslaught. Although the power was down, they still had gas and water. Everyone brought food. But no one had heard from Kenneth.
"We had him listed as missing and perhaps dead," John said.
But no one would leave the city without him. So John decided to search for his father, telling Dea he'd return by 4 p.m. that Wednesday— the time the government had imposed martial law and a mandatory evacuation. He drove his car as far as he could, walking from the highway to the Elysian Fields exit. As soon as he hit the off ramp, he was enveloped by 6 feet of water.
John swam for about a mile. Exhausted, he was forced to rest his arm on a dead body as he reached for a tree to steady himself. A rescue boat picked him up and dropped him in an area where he trudged through 2 feet of water. When he finally reached his father's relatively undamaged home, he found him waiting at a neighbor's house.
"I said, 'You better be dead, because my Mom's going to kill you,' '' John said, laughing.
Both of them swam back to the family home through an oily stew of large, white fish, frogs and tadpoles. When the water level fell, John grabbed his father's discarded bike, which he had locked near the interstate after abandoning it to the rising water. John pedaled ahead to tell the family Kenneth was alive. Three people tried to steal the bike from him, but he fended them off, he said.
By the time the two men got back to the Garden District, the city's levees had broken and the water level had risen by 6 inches. It took them six or seven hours to complete a trip that normally took 20 minutes by car.
Getting out
John, Dea and the kids packed the van and headed for Lafayette, La., where they stayed with cousins. Next, they drove to Beaumont, Texas, where they stayed with John's best friend. Then they drove 20 hours to "Auntie Vi's" in New Mexico.
Vioma had spent three days searching for the family through the Internet and by phone before finally getting through to John's grandmother. Vioma and John's mother, Carmen, had met and formed a close friendship at the College of Santa Fe years ago.
"All I wanted to do was to hear my girlfriend's voice," Vioma said. "I said, 'Get up here and we'll find beds.' ''
By the time the family arrived in La Cienega last week, they were numb, Vioma said.
The Iberts said they have been overwhelmed by the kindness of the people of New Mexico. A Plaza store owner gave them free Creole Cream Cheese ice cream when they learned the family was from New Orleans. Two women from Baton Rouge tried to give them $60 in a fast-food restaurant.
"I said, 'Thank you, I'm OK,' and I gave it to the Red Cross," John said.
Vioma took John to a local clinic as soon as he arrived. His skin was peeling from exposure to chemicals in the contaminated water.
"My friends tell me, 'You should get therapy. You were seeing all these dead bodies,' '' he said. "But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
Dea's daughter, Raven, has been taking the loss of her school and her friends hard.
"She's been disrupted immeasurably," Dea said. "I said, 'You've got to roll with the punches.' She said, 'Mom, there have been so many punches lately that I'm just trying to stand on my feet.' ''
Kenneth and Carmen flew to Albuquerque from Lafayette on Wednesday night. They were supposed to be vacationing in Paris this week.
A New Orleans resident for 24 years, Carmen remembers nailing downed terra cotta tiles back onto the roof after other storms.
"We had a false sense of security," she said. "We had been through all the storms, and we survived."
On Thursday, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin announced he would open portions of the city.
"I don't think I can go back now," Carmen said. "I need to recover myself before I go back. We just felt useless."
Former casino dealers at Harrah's New Orleans, John and Dea already have jobs lined up at Sandia Casino. The managers at Santa Fe's San Mateo Apartments have offered them free rent for three months.
Dea isn't sure she can ever go back.
"There's hurricane season every year," she said. "It's like I'm going to plant a farm and the locusts are coming."
John considers Santa Fe his second home, since he was born here. He visited the Trujillos nearly every year with his parents, who had a key to the Trujillos' house. But in his heart, he's still from New Orleans.
"I definitely want to go back," he said. "It's my city."