Man Released after being lost in Katrina chaos
James Mitchell is starting over. New home, new job, new life. in Lafayette. But he's about four months behind the thousands of other Hurricane Katrina evacuees who began settling here last fall. That's because Mitchell spent 112 days wrongfully imprisoned in the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center as a result of a paperwork glitch after the chaotic evacuation of more than 7,000 inmates from Orleans Parish Prison. "The system, to me, is messed up," Mitchell said this week while taking a break from splitting logs at his new job in Scott. "But what really helped me to forgive everything about it was the (emergency) situation."
For weeks, Mitchell was lost in the prison system - corrections officials thought he had been released, but he in fact remained in jail, serving far more than his original 20-day sentence for criminal trespassing. He was released Dec. 22 after a reporter from The Daily Advertiser pointed out the mix-up to volunteer lawyers working to free the thousands of New Orleans inmates in jail for minor offenses but without charges.
Mitchell knew he wasn't supposed to be in jail, but he was without the resources, such as a lawyer or a local family member, to get out. His frustration mixed with his determination to find a way to start over in Lafayette. He remembers the day, Dec. 21, when a sheriff's deputy told him his time had finally come to leave. "I heard it, but you know how you hear things but you can't really believe it's happening," Mitchell said.
Since then, Mitchell bounced between area homeless shelters and new friends' homes as he tried to get back on his feet. On Friday, he got a place of his own - a room at an Evangeline Thruway hotel, funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He'll stay there for a month while Christopher Hughes, his caseworker at Acadiana Outreach Center, helps him find an apartment. Hughes has helped lead Mitchell through the complicated aid application process, and he said FEMA has been closely scrutinizing requests for help so long after the storm. "But they understand that people are still in need," Hughes said.
Mitchell's job working in the yard at Acadiana Tree and Fence Services, making $8 an hour, also is temporary. He plans to work just long enough to afford steel-toed boots, gloves and coveralls. In that other life, before the storm, Mitchell worked offshore, and he needs his own gear before he can get started. He considers himself lucky that the massive prison reshuffling landed him here. "Lafayette, if it ain't nothing else, it's oilfield oriented," Mitchell said.
Even while he still was in prison, Mitchell was quizzing other inmates about job possibilities. That mission kept him going, even when he wasn't sure how long he'd be in jail, he said. "I try to work and get my own. If I need help, yes, I appreciate you doing it ... but I was always taught to get my own," Mitchell said.
Originally published in the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, January 15, 2006
by Kayla Gagnet, kgagnet@theadvertiser.com
Evacuees move to new home
Lafayette Daily Advertiser, November 17, 2005
Rosemary Oster, who lost the home she owned in St. Bernard Parish, said she had been afraid to leave the shelter. Oster had been working for weeks to get closer to her 81-year-old mother, an evacuee in a nursing home in Centerville.
I never had a chance to think of the hurricane. I just can't wait to sit in my own little corner and sort all this out in my head, Oster said. I'm numb from all the hurt and pain. I know I need counseling because of all this. I need to get my head straight before I can help my mom.
By late afternoon, Oster was in her own hotel room, enjoying her first moments of privacy since she left her St. Bernard Parish home before it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Acadiana Outreach stepped in to assist her transition.
It's quiet. I'm not used to this. I finally can take deep breaths, Oster said. It was like I was dodging bullets over there. I need this peace of mind. I felt like I was going out of my mind for a little while there.
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