Archie Creech: A Legal Aid Society of Birmingham Hero
Archie is always eager to get to work.
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Legal Aid represents children in the Jefferson County family courts in Birmingham and Bessemer. The clients range in age from birth to 21 years old.
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His law office was totally destroyed. He could not get to it for weeks after Hurricane Katrina, a Category 5 hurricane that broke the levees in New Orleans. “When I went to work the Friday before the storm, it was a Category 3 out in the Atlantic. It had to cross over Florida,” Archie Creech recalled that fateful day in August 2005. Hurricanes typically lose strength over land. While in the Gulf of Mexico, Katrina strengthened to a Category 4 and was a Category 5 as it approached the northern Gulf Coast. Because Archie and his wife, Jessie, had survived many hurricanes in the past, they had developed their own strategy for evacuations. They left late. They had done it before and encountered little to no traffic in the past. But this time it was not easy leaving the Big Easy. It took them 19 hours to get to Birmingham. Along the route, they called friends to seek lodging. A friend said his in-laws in Birmingham would help them find a place. So, they loaded their band of Noah’s Ark — two parents, two children, two dogs and two cats — and headed to Birmingham. During their time in Birmingham, what struck them most about the area was the beauty. They would marvel at the scenery as they walked their pets. What sealed the deal and made them want to stay was the friendliness of the people. “We took the kids to school and were greeted with, ‘Are you the refugees from New Orleans?’ I said, ‘Yes, we are,” Archie fondly remembers. The school helped with furniture and other necessities. “They were a life saver.” Six weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit, Archie returned to New Orleans to assess the damage. Their home was situated 3 feet above ground, and the home had been filled with 6 feet of standing water. “The first thing I noticed was the utter
BIRMINGHAM BAR BULLETIN
