Hurricane Katrina swept out of the Gulf of Mexico on August 29, 2005, as the most catastrophic hurricane in U.S. history, causing at least 1,604 deaths and an estimated $75 billion in damages. Katrina wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast’s municipal services and civil order, profoundly testing government and other public-service professionals “on the ground.”

We contacted four Maxwell alumni who have played diverse roles in Katrina. Their stories merely hint at the breadth of involvement by the larger group of alumni we identified—perhaps two dozen strong—whose professional lives have been tested by this disaster.

Jack Stephens: Parish Sheriff

Jack Stephens ’76 M.P.A., sheriff of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, spent the lead-up to Katrina waiting for news at the local office of the National Hurricane Center. Discovering the eye of the hurricane would pass directly over St. Bernard, Stephens told his 398 deputies that “they had a chance to be heroes. People were depending on them, and they just needed to go do their jobs.”

When Katrina hit, approximately 8,000 people had not yet been evacuated from St. Bernard, which lies immediately southeast of New Orleans. The hurricane pushed a 30-foot wall of water from Lake Borgne through the parish—a 680-square-mile area of mostly wetlands—in 10 minutes. Local levees burst and oil rigs flooded. Only one house was untouched.

Stephens and his deputies practiced search-and-rescue with oil-patch barges and Sea-Doos, evacuating people using commandeered ships and housing 900 refugees in the evacuated jailhouse. Fatalities in the parish totaled only 137, with 50 missing.

Stephens now lives and works out of trailers. Only 10 percent of St. Bernard’s 67,000 residents have returned, but “business is picking up,” he says wryly, with 10 to 12 arrests per day for various crimes, including an influx of gang activity.

“I sometimes wonder what the future holds,” Stephens admits. Most days he feels optimistic, watching “tenacious people returning and rebuilding their houses.” Other days he senses federal ambivalence about rebuilding. “I hope they will recognize this is a vibrant port city, and an energy-producing city, that is strategic to our security and so contributory to the nation’s economy and culture.”

“Chet” Drozdowski: HUD Command

New Orleans resident and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) veteran Chester “Chet” Drozdowski ’97 M.A. (P.A.) was vacationing in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, the weekend before Katrina hit—placing him out of harm’s way and, ironically, in a better position to perform his job as senior operations specialist and disaster and continuing operations coordinator. Drozdowski worked via cell phone to locate his staff and transfer operations to HUD’s regional headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas—which New Orleans’ lack of power would have made impossible.

Unlike Drozdowski, whose apartment was unscathed, 70 out of 85 New Orleans HUD staff members experienced damage to their homes or lost everything, which helped delay HUD’s reopening in New Orleans until January. Until then, Drozdowski helped run Disaster Recovery Centers throughout southern Louisiana, opening HUD’s doors in New Orleans for limited business only.

Before Katrina, New Orleans’ affordable housing market was tight, says Drozdowski, but since then it has become virtually nonexistent. “Pre-Katrina, New Orleans’ Housing Authority had a waiting list of 5,000 people,” he says. However, with 200,000 units damaged or destroyed in metropolitan New Orleans, “there will not be enough housing units to take care of those who have been displaced. Unfortunately, most of [our] HUD clients want to return to the city. The reality of the situation is there is virtually nothing available at any price.”

Kara DeSantis: Finding a New Home

When Deloitte Consulting pitched in to oversee the evacuation of 250 New Orleans refugees to Massachusetts, the Boston-based public sector consulting firm assigned consultant Kara DeSantis ’03 M.P.A. to the job. DeSantis traveled to Cape Cod’s Massachusetts Military Reservation to assess the refugees’ intake; coordinate 60 state, federal, local, and nonprofit agencies; and make recommendations to the Massachusetts government for future emergency intake planning.

However, when DeSantis saw the refugees arriving in varying conditions—many appeared to have been homeless prior to the hurricane and a number had emotional and mental disturbances—she could not help becoming personally involved. (“One man was wearing wading boots, while another had a life vest on,” she recalls.) Together with the team of volunteers, DeSantis greeted the survivors and helped escort families through their processing.

“I interacted with a 16-year-old boy who was looking for his mother. Their house was flooding, and he left to check on their neighbors. When he came back, his mother was gone,” she recalls. “Every person had their own story of sadness, but the overall mood in the intake hangar was positive.”

After three months the refugees returned to New Orleans or found housing in Massachusetts. DeSantis remains struck by the experience. “Tears come to my eyes even now,” she says.

Rachel Roberts: On-Site Relief

Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck, and three weeks into her first job out of Maxwell, public administration consultant Rachel Roberts ’05 M.P.A./M.A. (I.R.) was a management development associate for the City of Dallas. She left to relocate in Mississippi for a year that she calls “a journey that [will] forever change my life.”

As a consultant for Hagerty Consulting Inc. (an Evanston, Illinois-based public sector consulting firm founded by Steve Hagerty ’93 [M.P.A.]), Roberts is a public assistance project officer serving the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), responsible for administering aid to two devastated cities, Pass Christian and Biloxi.

FEMA’s Public Assistance Program provides help to states and communities recovering from major disasters by funding removal of debris, emergency protective measures, restoration of public infrastructure, and mitigation measures. Roberts writes grants for reimbursement funding, which requires “reviewing millions of dollars’ worth of invoices and time sheets used to verify expenses and labor used during and after a disaster,” as well as visiting disaster sites and interviewing applicants.

Despite often difficult circumstances—sporadic electricity, no potable water, 60-to-80-hour workweeks, and a seemingly endless supply of applicants who have lost everything—Roberts feels fortunate to have a job that allows her to implement federal policies.

“Being in a disaster area wears on you both emotionally and physically,” she says. “However, at the end of the day, I derive so much personal and professional satisfaction from this job. I’m at the forefront of history in the making.”

—Susan Piperato

This article appeared in the Spring 2006 print edition of Maxwell Perspective; © 2006 Maxwell School of Syracuse University. To request a copy, e-mail dlcooke@maxwell.syr.edu.