The Southern Digest August 31, 2012

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Volume 59, Number 2

The Digest will return Sept. 6

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Jaguars look to New Mexico see Sports, Page 5

Gulf Coast on first name basis with Katrina see Culture, Page 6

Through the eye of Isaac

photo by Ariana Triggs/DIGEST(

(Above) Major damage after tree collapses on The Pavilion in the back of campus. The rear of the pavilion is completely engulfed in tree limbs and leaves, visible from the opposite side of the ravine. photo by Arielle burks/DIGEST

(Below) Light pole leaning after hurricane and tropical storm winds from Isaac. The pole is leaning in front of The Wesley Foundation on Harding Blvd just buildings from the police checkpoint. photo by Arielle burks/DIGEST

photo by Ariana triggs/DIGEST

Damage from Hurricane Issac on Southern University’s campus. This tress was split in front Washington Hall in front of the union parking lot.

Directional and Instructional signs leaning after the imapct of Hurricane and Tropical storm winds of Isaac.

GOHSEP releases updates in aftermath of Isaac Agents rescue over 1,500 As of 9 a.m., Aug. 30, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) Enforcement Division agents had rescued 1,537 people in St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany and Tangipahoa parishes since yesterday afternoon, Aug. 29.

LDWF agents worked around the clock evacuating residents to higher ground from rising floodwaters.

Louisiana’s Joint Information Center is placing photos from the search and rescue millions that took place in LaPlace yesterday afternoon and this morning online using the photo sharing site Flickr. St. John the Baptist Parish: 1,435 people and 131 pets using 50 agents with vessels; St. Tammany Parish: 60 people and one pet using 10 agents with vessels and

Tangipahoa Parish: 42 people and 17 pets using six agents with vessels Intentional Levee Breach to drain flood waters The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority of Louisiana, and the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - East, in coordination with the Lake Borgne Basin Levee District and Plaquemines Parish intentionally breached the Caernarvon Diversion Guide Levee to help drain flood waters in Braithwaite/Scarsdale communities in Plaquemines Parish, La., Thursday.

16 Parish offices closed on Friday EBR plans to open Due to continuing concerns over flooding, road conditions, and power outages caused by Tropical Storm Isaac, Commissioner of

Administration Paul Rainwater announced that Louisiana state government offices will remain closed on Friday, August 31, in the following parishes: Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson, Lafourche, Terrebonne, Assumption, Ascension, Livingston, St. Helena, Tangipahoa, Washington, St. Tammany, St. James, St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parish.

State offices in all other parishes, including East Baton Rouge, will reopen Friday.

However, department heads should exercise discretion if they have a particular circumstance, such as a building without power, that necessitates employees not reporting to work within a parish that is reopened.State officials continue to monitor the weather, road conditions, power

outages, and flooding, and this announcement may be updated.

Points of Distribution opening today The Louisiana National Guard will be managing Points of Distribution in key areas affected by Hurricane Isaac, beginning tomorrow in locations where conditions permit.

The first round of PODs will be open at 8 a.m. in the following parishes: Terrebonne; Lafourche; St. John the Baptist; St. Bernard; Jefferson; St. James; Plaquemines; Orleans; and Iberville.

The PODs will be stocked with Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), water and ice. In some locations, tarps will be available.

At this time, there will be 27 PODs located in the nine parishes, with more locations possible as conditions change.

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The Louisiana National Guard and other state agencies work with local officials to determine if and where PODs are needed, based on the conditions on the ground, the severity of damage to the community and the availability of supplies from local businesses.

The PODs are currently standing up and being stocked with supplies. A Point of Distribution or POD is where the public goes to pick up emergency supplies following a disaster. The need for a POD is based on lack of infrastructure to support normal distribution of food, water, or other supplies.

Parishes will be announcing the location of their PODs as they open. Residents may contact 211 or their local Office of Emergency Preparedness for more information.

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Page 2 - Friday, August 31, 2012

(Plaquemines Parish) - system flooded; East Point-A-La-Hache Water System (Plaquemines Parish) - system flooded; Port Sulphur Water System household items Factory direct pricing. (Plaquemines Parish) - system Istrouma Mattress.

3538 flooded; Schriever Water System Plank Road, Baton Rouge, La. (Terrebonne Parish) 225.357.4030. interruption in water treatment facility; St. John Water District Campus Briefs #1 (St. John the Baptist Parish) - system flooded; today Town of Roseland (Tangipahoa Parish) - pressure Isaac now a tropical loss due to power outage; and depression West Baton Rouge According to The National Hurricane Center, Slow moving Waterworks District 2 (West Isaac weakens to a depression Baton Rouge Parish) - broken over Northern Louisiana. water main from fallen tree Flooding rains continue across caused pressure loss.

People whose water system Southeastern Louisiana and Mississippi.

There are no is under a boil advisory should coastal watches or warnings disinfect water prior to drinking in effect. Even though Isaac is it, cooking with it, brushing no longer a tropical storm… teeth or preparing food using dangerous hazards from storm one of the following methods: surge, inland flooding, and Boil water for one full minute tornadoes are still occurring. in a clean container. The oneWater levels remain in minute boil time begins after Southeastern Louisiana and the water has been brought to a coastal Mississippi. Isaac is rolling boil. (The flat taste that expected to produce total sometimes results from this rainfall accumulations of 7-14 process can be eliminated by inches with isolated amounts of shaking the water in a bottle or pouring it from one container to 25 inches possible. another.)

If the water is clear coming EBR Curfew The curfew in East Baton from the tap, mix 1/8 teaspoon Rouge Parish is no longer in of unscented, liquid chlorine effect. Trash services and parish laundry bleach with one gallon services are expected to resume of water and let it stand for at least 30 minutes prior to today. consumption. If the water is cloudy or colored, use 1/4 Boil Advisories and Boiling teaspoon per gallon of water.

Instructions The Louisiana Department Be sure to mix thoroughly. If of Health and Hospitals is the treated water has too strong issuing boil advisories for the a chlorine taste, it can be made following systems in response to more palatable by allowing the water to stand exposed to the Hurricane Isaac.

New Boil Advisories: air for a few hours or by pouring Crossgates Utilities - Crossgates it from one clean container to Subdivision (St. Tammany another several times.

Parish) - pressure loss due to power outage; Houma Water DOTD announces routes clear to New Orleans System (Terrebonne Parish) The Louisiana Department received water from Schriever, Transportation and which is under boil advisory; of (DOTD) River Oaks Water System (St. Development Tammany Parish) - pressure announced Thursday open loss due to power outage; Town routes for drivers returning to of Churchpoint (Acadia Parish) the New Orleans area following - pressure loss due to broken Hurricane Isaac.

DOTD crews are working water main; and diligently to reopen roadways Waterworks District No. 2 closed during the storm.

(St. Helena Parish) - pressure Currently, the most direct open loss due to power outage. routes into the city include: Existing Boil Advisories: Traveling to New Orleans Alton Water System (St. from the east: Tammany Parish) - pressure Take I-10 west to I-610 west. loss due to power outage; I-610 will then reconnect with Crossgates Ben Thomas I-10 just west of the city.

Road (St. Tammany Parish) Traveling to New Orleans - pressure loss due to power from the west: outage; Dalcour Water System

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Tangipahoa Evacuation and Shelter information

The state of Louisiana urges any resident who is under an evacuation order in Tangipahoa Parish to call the state’s 2-1-1 phone hotline to find out the latest information regarding sheltering and evacuations.

The state is coordinating evacuations to state-run shelters in north Louisiana.

The state anticipates that between 40,000 and 60,000 people may ultimately be impacted by flooding if the Lake Tangipahoa dam in Pike County, MS, fails. The Tangipahoa Parish president has issued a mandatory evacuation order for residents on one mile of either side of the Tangipahoa River.

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Tangipahoa Parish routes to evacuate

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) has developed a list of priority routes which they will strive to quickly and safely reopen in order to facilitate evacuation efforts in Tangipahoa Parish.

DOTD crews are working diligently to reopen area roadways closed during the storm. The routes that crews will be working to reopen first in Tangipahoa Parish include I-55, I-12, U.S. 51, U.S. 190 and La. 16.

Agents rescue over 1,500

As of 9 a.m., Aug. 30, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) Enforcement Division agents had rescued 1,537 people in St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany and Tangipahoa parishes since yesterday afternoon, Aug. 29.

LDWF agents worked around the clock evacuating residents.

ISSN: 1540-7276. Copyright 2012 by The Southern University Office of Student Media Services. The Southern DIGEST is written, edited and published by members of the student body at Southern University and A&M College.

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Take I-10 east to U.S. 61 (exit 187) toward Gramercy.

Turn right onto La. 641. La. 641 will turn into La. 3213 near the Mississippi River. Travel on La. 3213 and take a left on La. 3127. Keep straight on La. 3127 and take I-310 to New Orleans until it connects with I-10 east. I-10 east will take you into the city.

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Friday, August 31, 2012 - Page 3

The Sentinel Of An Enlightened Student Body since 1926

SUNO students met with hospitality, concern Jessica Sarpy

The Southern Digest

In the wake of Hurricane Isaac Southern University New Orleans students were forced to evacuate to the Southern University Baton Rouge campus Monday and are being housed by Residential Life in SUBR dormitories.

With Hurricane Isaac slowly making its way toward the gulf coast SUNO officials considered cancellation of classes and a mandatory evacuation of SUNO students, however there are some students who cannot evacuate on an instant notice.

Like Stephanie Buhl, a sophomore Biology and math major from Germany, over 5000 miles from home.

Buhl described her stay at SUBR during Isaac. “At first it wasn’t the great because the place where we were housed was very dirty and old. It was the White or Reed Hall dorms and was closed for three semesters. After a lot of fighting we were finally placed in Boley Hall which is way better,” said Buhl.

Some students were not prepared to spend more than 3-4 days here at SUBR and were anxious to get back to the familiar.

“I just want to be in my own place with my own stuff. I

didn’t pack for a week or anything. I just really hope that everything looks normal when we get back.“ SUNO’s Student Government Association President Marc Guichard, a senior psychology major from New Orleans was just happy that everyone was able to get out of New Orleans safe and had nothing but gratitude toward SUBR and it’s hospitality.

“I’m glad we are all here.

SUBR has done it’s best to make sure we are comfortable.

I would like to thank the whole family of the Southern System, especially Dr. Llorens and his wife Glenda, SGA president Willie McCorkle, and Chief Justice Simone Bray. These people were really there for us and welcomed us with open arms,” Guichard said.

After thanking those he considered instrumental Guichard continued, “The student leaders here are amazing individuals and are a credit to this University. They have definitely demonstrated leadership and you all should be very proud to have them.”

But it wasn’t all smiles and gratitude from SUNO students.

While enjoying their stay here at SUBR some students can’t help but worry about the current state of their home university.

photo by ariana triggs/DIGEST

SUNO students and SGA President Marc Guichard at bottom right stand for a picture in Southern University BR’s office of Student Media. Students housed on the BR campus will await the decision from the SUNO campus for their safe return.

SUNO student and SGA Chief of Staff Tiara Washington, a senior general studies major from New Orleans said, “I’ve been in contact with our chancellor and he says that as of now there are a lot of tree branches down and there is no power on campus.”

Washington expressed her hope and concern for the campus’ full recovery before she returns, “I hope it’s still pretty when we get back. When we left SUNO it looked like it was an ordinary day minus a lot of students and faculty. As though there weren’t a storm

coming.”

Meanwhile students are awaiting the word from SUNO Chancellor Victor Ukpolo, of when campus will be reopened, classes resume and students will return.

Levees around New Orleans prove reliable Cain Burdeau

The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Seven years ago, the Army Corps of Engineers was desperately trying to plug breaches in the city’s broken and busted levee system.

Since those catastrophic days, the Army Corps has worked at breakneck speed — and at a cost of billions of dollars — to install new floodgates, pumps, floodwalls and levees across New Orleans. The work paid off. A day after Isaac hit New Orleans on the seventh anniversary of Katrina, officials said the 130-mile flood protection system did its job.

“If I had to give it a grade, I would give it an A-minus, and only a minus because of the small challenges we had,” said Tim Doody, the

president of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, a commission that oversees levees protecting New Orleans.

The only problem came at the 17th Street Canal, the site of a breach during Katrina. When computers that are supposed to turn on pumps failed there Wednesday. Pump operators had to turn them on by hand, causing a delay of an hour or two, Doody said.

Getting the pumps to work is critical.

The 17th Street Canal is one of three major drainage canals the city pumps rain into and flushes out to Lake Pontchartrain. When Katrina hit, those drainage canals proved to be fatal as surge from the lake rushed into them and broke through poorly designed floodwalls. The breaches caused much of the flooding of the oldest sections of New Orleans.

To prevent that from happening again, the Army Corps installed new floodgates and pumps at the mouth of the drainage canals to block water from coming in. The corps’ pumps must also be able to keep up with the city’s pumps or water gets backed up.

Rachel Rodi, a corps spokeswoman, said having to turn pumps on by hand was not a big deal. “I wouldn’t say it was an issue,” she said.

A day earlier, a floodgate at another drainage canal, the Orleans Avenue Canal, had to be shut with a crane.

That too was not serious, she said.

During Isaac, the corps used for the first time in the face of a hurricane some of the system’s biggest new structures.

It closed two large floodgates that cut off surge from entering the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal, a place long

considered an Achilles’ heel in the city.

It also closed and operated a floodgate and pumping system on the West Bank, a suburban area of the city on the opposite side of the Mississippi River from the French Quarter.

Isaac brought storm surge that reached up to 14 feet in the area around the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal, just 2 to 3 feet shy of what Katrina pushed in.

“If that surge barrier had not been there, the story would have been a very different story,” Doody said.

The corps is not done with its work.

So far it has spent about $10 billion of the $14 billion Congress set aside.

The corps plans to build bigger and stronger floodgates and pumping stations at the three drainage canals and armor the entire system with concrete.

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Page 4 - Friday, August 31, 2012

The Sentinel Of An Enlightened Student Body since 1926

Farmers await storm remnats Jim Suhr

The Associated Press

Water released from Isaacstressed dam Cain Burdeau & Michael Kunzelman The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Isaac soaked Louisiana for yet another day and pushed more water into neighborhoods all around the city, flooding homes and forcing lastminute evacuations and rescues.

New Orleans itself was spared, thanks in large part to a levee system built after Katrina.

As the storm slogged its way across the state and windy conditions calmed, the extent of some of the damage became clear. Hundreds of homes, perhaps more, were underwater, thousands of people were staying at shelters and half of the state was without power. About 500 people had to be rescued by boat or highwater vehicles, and at least two people were killed.

And the damage may not be done. Officials were releasing water from an Isaac-stressed dam at a lake near the LouisianaMississippi border, hoping to ease the pressure. They had also started work on a levee breach in hard-hit Plaquemines Parish. In Arkansas, power lines were downed and trees knocked over as Isaac moved into the state.

Farther south, where evacuations were ordered ahead of the storm, Isaac’s unpredictable, meandering path and the amount of rain — as much as 16 inches in some places — caught many off guard.

“I was blindsided, nobody expected this,” said Richard Musatchia, who left his home in LaPlace, northwest of the city.

Musatchia said 5 feet of water filled his home before a neighbor passed by with a boat and evacuated him and his 6-year-old boxer, Renny.

He piled two suitcases, a backpack and a few smaller bags onto the boat and said that’s all he has left. He left a brand-new Cadillac and a HarleyDavidson behind.

“People have their generators, because they thought the power would go out, but no one expected the water,” he said.

Others trickled into a parking lot of the New Wine Christian Fellowship church, delivered by National Guard vehicles, school buses and pickup trucks.

Daphine and David Newman fled their newly decorate home with two trash bags of clothing. They have lived in their subdivision since 1992, and they never had water in their home from previous storms, including Katrina. The comparison was common one since Isaac hit on the seventh anniversary of the devastating 2005 storm, though the differences were stark.

Katrina was more powerful, a Category 3 at landfall, while Isaac was a Category 1 at its peak. Isaac wobbled around; Katrina barreled into the state and quickly moved through.

David Newman was frustrated the government spent billions reinforcing levees for New Orleans and Jefferson Parish after Katrina and now he had the water.

“The water’s got to go somewhere,” he said. “It’s going to find the weakest link, and with the wind directions, we was ground zero.”

As officials called for impromptu evacuations, a debate started about whether anyone was to blame.

Jefferson Parish Council president Chris Roberts said forecasters at the National Hurricane Center needed a new way of measuring the danger.

ST. LOUIS — Indiana farmer John Kolb normally would welcome storms that could provide his crops with badly needed water in this summer of drought. Instead, he and other Corn Belt farmers are nervously watching the forecast as Hurricane Isaac’s remnants slog their way, concerned they could end up getting too much of a good thing.

The reason for their worry: Strong winds could topple corn stalks already severely weakened by the nation’s worst drought in two generations, and a possible deluge could muddy the fields and slow bringing in whatever crop is still salvageable.

“We could really use the moisture, but I don’t want wind,” Kolb, 41, said from the 2,000 acres of corn and soybeans he farms with his dad and uncle in southeastern Indiana’s Franklin County and the adjacent Butler County in Ohio. “The corn is just so weak. It’s been so dry that it kind of cannibalized itself. It fed off itself to try to stay alive and it wouldn’t take a whole lot to blow it down.

“That would make it a tangled

PHOTO BY danny johnston/DIGEST

Storm clouds leading remnants of Hurricane Isaac gather in the skies over a grain elevator in England, Ark., Thursday.With the storms approaching many farm states, some farmers wonder whether too much relief is on the horizon.

mess, and that’s pretty hard to harvest.”

Isaac has lost strength since coming ashore late Tuesday as a Category 1 hurricane, with 80 mph winds near the mouth of the Mississippi River. But it’s still expected to provide a dousing for much of the nation’s midsection — from Arkansas north to Missouri and into a corner of Iowa, then east through Illinois and Indiana to Ohio — in coming days. Rainfall totals could reach up to 7 inches, according to a U.S. Drought Monitor weekly update Thursday.

In Arkansas, farmers scrambled to bring in as much of their corn and rice as they could before Isaac’s wind and rain reached the state. With the storm blowing Thursday into southeast Arkansas, growers had to leave their fields and begin the wait to see what the storm will do to their crops.

Isaac’s encroachment came as the latest weekly update by a drought-tracking effort credited recent rains in the central U.S. with easing the dryness, even if it was far too late for some corn crops.

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Friday, august 31, 2012 - Page 5

Jaguars face Lobos in first match ariSTiDe PhilliPS

The Southern Digest

After spring, summer and fall training the jaguar football team are finally going to hit someone other than each other as they travel to Albuquerque to take on the University of New Mexico.

The Jaguars are coming of a 4-7 (4-5 Southwestern Athletic Conference) season, are projected to finish fourth in the western Division, and have fifteen players returning from last year’s squad.

They will have the opportunity to surprise the other opponents this year, with a “must-win” season at stake for Head Coach Stump Mitchell, who is entering into his final season as head coach for the Jaguars.

In his three years, Mitchell has accumulated a 6-16 record, and is in the hot seat, coach is well aware of his situation and understands the demand and believes that this year’s team can win games.

Saturday’s game will be the first meeting between University of New Mexico and Southern.

The Lobos are 9-2 against Football Championship Subdivision Schools since 1990.

However, UNM has lost two of its last three games against FCS schools, including a 48-45 overtime defeat to Sam Houston State last year.

Also the Lobos will be without starting cornerback, Devonta Tabannah, who was reportedly arrested for driving under the influence, after being cited for running a red light

and his inability to present proof of insurance and driving with out a license, according to an Albuquerque Journal online edition post.

The Lobos will also be without senior defensive linemen Rod Davis and Fatu Ulale for impermissible benefit violations last season.

Junior backup quarterback David Vega will not be of any use to the Lobos offense following his indefinite suspension for underage drinking.

“They’re old enough to know right from wrong and the reality is it’s illegal to do that. Even though they were told to do that, and even though the account was given to them to use, it’s a mistake,” said New Mexico first year Head Coach Bob Davie in an interview with Albuquerque’s CBS affiliate, KRQE News 13.

The Jaguars have a few injuries that may hurt them in their contest against the Lobos Saturday with Sylvester Nzekwe (ankle), RB Jerry Joseph (knee) who will be back for the Jaguars home opener against Mississippi Valley State on September 13 and RT Taylon Jones (concussion) will be out indefinitely.

Coach Mitchell also cited junior quarterback Dray Joseph as key to the Jaguar offense as starter, he will have to be the sole play caller of the Jaguar offense unless injured.

When asked if there was a possibility if sophomore quarterback J.P. Douglass would see any playing time Mitchell said, “None. There is absolutely no situation where he would play other than if Dray gets hurt”.

The Jaguars will face the Lobos tomorrow at 4:06 p.m. Central Time at Branch Field.

PHOTO By TreVOr James/diGesT

Southern head football coach Stump Mitchell and the Jaguars head west to take on FBS member New Mexico Saturday in hopes of opening the 2012 season with with an upset win over the Lobos.

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Page 6 - Friday, August 31, 2012

The Sentinel Of An Enlightened Student Body since 1926

Gulf Coast, storms on firstname basis Brian Schwaner

The Southern Digest

NEW ORLEANS — Along the Gulf Coast, you’re not a real hurricane veteran until you’re on a first-name basis with one of the killer storms.

That’s because for all the misery they cause, hurricanes become ingrained in the fabric of local life. If you survived, you wear it as a badge of merit. If you lost friends or loved ones to the winds and waters, you hold them in dread. The stories are handed down from generation to generation.

And always, you know them by their names.

Locals seldom use “Hurricane” before the names of the ones that left the deepest scars.

It’s just Katrina. Betsy.

Camille. Audrey.

And now — at least for people in Plaquemines Parish, the flat strip of land south of New Orleans partially inundated this week — it’s just Isaac.

The memories start at an early age. My first came in 1957, when Audrey was roaring out of the Gulf of Mexico. I was 3 years old and can well remember the worry in my parents’ voices, and the fear. Audrey made landfall in southwest Louisiana, driving in a wall of water — we call it storm surge today — and killing about 500 people.

During Betsy in 1965, I

huddled with family members through a night of howling winds, including the moment the roof lifted off our house. My father, a pressman at The TimesPicayune, was working the night she struck. He emerged the next morning to find a downed oak tree deposited in the front seat of his 1957 Ford station wagon.

People who rode out Camille in 1969 on the Mississippi coast recall what they were doing almost minute-by-minute the night the killer storm with the pretty name pushed its surge — the height of a small office building — onto the sandy shores, wiping out everything in its path. They’ll tell you of seeing bodies of neighbors who’d been swept away get washed back inland.

If you were in New Orleans when Katrina struck in 2005, the images of 11 feet of water in homes, corpses floating in the streets, huddled masses in the Superdome and other horrors will never go away.

The same storm gave younger Mississippians a reference point to talk with their elders about Camille.

Someone I knew in the Midwest once asked me what the difference was in having your home destroyed by a tornado in Kansas and watching it washed away in Louisiana.

My reply was simple: A tornado is on you in an instant.

It is an impersonal black cloud

PHOTO By brett duke/the times-picayune/ap photo

St. John the Baptist Parish sheriff’s deputies evacuate residents from the River Forest subdivision in LaPlace, La. as wind-driven tides flood the neighborhood Wednesday. Isaac arrived exactly seven years after Hurricane Katrina and passed slightly to the west of New Orleans, where the city’s fortified levee system easily handled the assault.

that roars out of the sky, and then it’s gone.

With hurricanes, there’s a rhythm to it, a relationship that develops. It starts with a watchful eye when a storm starts brewing. Then the quickening heartbeat as it starts to come toward you. Will it stay to the projected path? Which of the slew of forecast models has it right?

Then there’s a sense of resolution that sets in. It’s time to leave or batten down for the duration. And as all things with a hurricane are personal, this decision is one you make knowing it really could be life or death.

There is the lull, maybe a few hours, maybe half a day, after the decision is made but before the storm arrives.

There is the rush as the wind

slowly picks up, then howls for hours and drives sheets of rain. You hear the pounding on your roofs, your windows and wind whistling all around. As Isaac approached, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser described the slashing rain entering his house as like having a fire hose spurting out of an electric socket. And he’s right.

Then there’s the letdown.

Even if you’ve been spared, there’s a peculiar kind of loss, like having gotten to know someone closely for a few days and realizing they’re not coming back. (The National Hurricane Center retires the names of the nastiest storms, so there will always be one Katrina, one Betsy, one Camille.)

Perhaps the most jarring experience of my personal relationship with hurricanes

came just after Katrina in August 2005.

I was working at the Cincinnati Enquirer, but one of my sons was in New Orleans. He spent the better part of a day trying to get out of town when panic set in before what was then a Category 5 monster in the Gulf.

When he went back weeks later, he found he’d lost everything to the floodwaters.

A day or two after the levees broke and despair flooded New Orleans, my wife Mary Anne and I were in a restaurant in the Cincinnati suburb of Milford. A waitress walked up and tried to make cheerful small talk as she prepared to take our order.

We were speechless, and she couldn’t figure out why.

Then we told her we were from New Orleans, and she got it.

Her nametag read, “Katrina.”

Will dispute prevents burial of Sherman Hemsley Juan Carlos Llorca The Associated Press

PHOTO By nick ut/ap photo

In this Aug. 11, 1986 file photo, actor Sherman Hemsley poses for a photo in Los Angeles. The manager for Hemsley says the late star of the television sitcom “The Jeffersons” refused treatment for lung cancer in the weeks before he died of what a coroner says were complications from the disease.

EL PASO, Texas — The embalmed body of actor Sherman Hemsley, who became famous for his role as television’s George Jefferson, will be kept in refrigeration at an El Paso funeral home until a local court rules on the validity of his will.

In the will Hemsley signed six weeks before dying of lung cancer July 24 he named Flora Enchinton, 56, whom he called a “beloved partner,” as sole beneficiary of his estate, which is estimated in court documents to be more than $50,000.

The will is being contested

by Richard Thornton, of Philadelphia, who claims to be Hemsley’s brother and says the

will might not have been made by the actor.

Enchinton told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she had been friends with Hemsley and had been his manager for more than 20 years. Over the time she, Hemsley and Hemsley’s friend Kenny Johnston, 76, lived together, she said he never mentioned any relatives.

“Some people come out of the woodwork — they think Sherman, they think money,” Enchinton said. “But the fact it that I did not know Sherman when he was in the limelight. I met them when they (Hemsley and Johnston) came running from Los Angeles with not one penny, when there was nothing but struggle.”

Mark Davis, listed in court

documents as Thornton’s lawyer in El Paso, did not immediately respond to messages left at his office.

There is no date set for the case to be heard, court officials said. Enchinton said she hopes it will all be cleared in court.

The Philadelphia-born Hemsley played Jefferson in the CBS sitcom “All in the Family,” then starred in the spinoff “The Jeffersons” from 1975 to 1985. It was one of TV’s longest-running and most successful sitcoms, particularly noteworthy for its predominantly black cast.

Hemsley made George Jefferson — the bigoted, blustering Harlem businessman — one of TV’s most memorable characters and a symbol for urban upward mobility.

Commentary southerndigest.com

The Sentinel Of An Enlightened Student Body since 1926

Friday, August 31, 2012 - Page 7

Isaac unusual in comparison SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY SUITE 1064 T.H. HARRIS HALL POST OFFICE BOX 10180 BATON ROUGE, LA 70813 PHONE: 225.771.2231 FAX: 225.771.5840 ONLINE @ www.southerndigest.com

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My experience during Hurricane Isaac has been unusual.

Usually I stick it out with my loved ones when a hurricane threatens the gulf coast, but this time I’ve chosen to stay on campus because I didn’t think it was that big a deal.

As I sat in the comfort of my dorm room I couldn’t help but think about my mom, brother and sister.

I can’t help but wonder how they were beating the heat. I can’t help but wish I were there to endure the situation with them.

I haven’t heard from my family in New Orleans for at least 3 days. As far as I know the power is off and that’s about it.

I’m scared and for them and would like nothing more than to hear my mom’s voice at this point.

There isn’t much I can do except pray for my siblings and my Mom. I don’t wish this feeling on anyone.

The feeling of not knowing how your loved ones are doing, or what they might be going through. What I have learned is that when the

Jessica Sarpy next hurricane hits I will be home with my family, in the trenches, wet or dry at least I wouldn’t have to wonder.

All I can do right now is watch the news and pray they don’t mention anything bad about my part of town and to the people in and from Plaquemines Parish, my heart goes out to you. I know whatever I’m feeling you all are feeling 100 times more.

That being said, There’s something about potential natural disasters that just brings the

SUBR community together.

I witnessed the facility staff of Residential Life whom we usually can’t stand during move-in days and throughout the semester band together as if we were their own children.

Don’t get me wrong I too have had my own personal vendetta against them, but I will give props when props are due. SU Residential life in my opinion did very well taking care of us residents.

Unfortunately we had the displeasure of having sack lunches for dinner. I know this isn’t Housing’s fault, more like Aramark’s. We pay Aramark aka “Campus Dining” all $1,162.00 for a Meal Plan and this is what we get?

A soggy sandwich, bag of chips and a bottle of water? I would be more lenient if we had lost power but we didn’t.

By receiving $1,162 from each student we expect you all to be supplying hot meals not sack lunchdinners. Honestly Aramark… Do better.

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My Experience on campus during Hurricane Isaac was slow; looking out of the window watching trees sway back and forth, seeing my fellow students running in the rain, and seeing SUPD patrolling the campus.

Although the experience was slow it gave me time to think deeper into the current situation.

Being from New Orleans, when July comes around I always get a little nervous and think back to August 29, 2005, after that everybody started to take Hurricane season seriously again, and this storm wasn’t any different.

Making landfall on the same day as Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Isaac wasn’t really a storm that made me think about the wind or the rain but made me think back to 2005.

Staying on campus, I couldn’t help

A ristide Phillips but watch CNN and the Weather Channel to try and stay on top of what was going on around Louisiana and back home in New Orleans. I called my family around the clock to make sure that they were ok even though they were without power for days along with over 900,000 other Louisianans.

Also, I thought about the people down in Plaquemines Parish, a parish that’s going through the something that I went through seven years ago, having to deal with levees being overtopped along with houses submerged by 12 feet of water was an eerie reminder of Katrina.

I can only hope that everybody that lives on the Gulf Coast stays safe and my heart goes out to every one in Plaquemines Parish, because I know the feeling of having your home destroyed and having to start over.

I know what it feels like because I’ve lived it and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

The power of mother nature is nothing to be taken lightly, whether it’s tropical storm or a Category 5 Hurricane you’re always at risk when you live in the Gulf Coast during hurricane season.

Page 8 - Friday, August 31, 2012

The Sentinel Of An Enlightened Student Body since 1926