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Waveland Back In School--In Tents
It is back to school in tents and trailers for up to 300 Gulf Coast children today only five; weeks and three days' after | Hurricane Camille struck with! unprecdented fury onr August!
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Classes started at 8:30 a.m.,; at St. Clare’s Parochial School' at Waveland—a town of 3,500 literally leveled by the storm.; Waveland's public school, which sheltered about 75 persons at the height of the storm, has been condemned and public school students are being taken care of in nearby Bay St. Louis.
But at St. St. Clare's, where the church, convent, school, parish house and hall were wiped out, a combination of federal, state and local government agencies, private contractors and volunteers, all working together, have put up a temporary school of tents and trailers.
The building of this temporary school is typical of the determination of the people along the devastated Gulf Coast, “together We Build” is their slo-. gan and President Richard Nix-' on gave this slogan added emphasis when he visited the area September 8. He told an overflow crowd at the Gulfport airport that he was “confident that you will not only rebuild, but ; build a new area with new j ideas.”
It has taken weeks to even clear the roads; it will take months to clear the area; years to rebuild.
But schools have top priority. And with this priority, the various federal, state and local officials involved began to move.
For the school at St. Clare, an attempt was made initially to get temporary housing but this proved to be impacticable. Finally, with the help of the United States Army and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, SBA was able to arrange for the loan of nine field tents measuring 16’ x 32’ and 7 trailers. But tents and trailers were not enough. Debris had to be cleared, platforms built, sanitation facilities provided, water and electricity' brought in, books, desks, chairs and all the other items necessary for children In the first eight grades were required.
. Working together—local, state and federal agencies, local con-! tractors and many volunt;|.-3 Jhave made possible today’s school opening.
The project began when the tents arrived from Ft. Benning, Georgia, September 9. At that time, only the church itself had been cleared and temporary plywood walis had been built half-way up to the roof, but the other buildings at St. Clare's Community were just as ! the storm had left them.
On Seotemtber 10, with the help of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Office of Emer-g e n c y Preparedness, NASA, SBA and various local organizations and citizens, work started.
Bulldozers began clearing the debris. Waveland's water company repaired broken water mains;; the gas company fixed ruptured gas lines. A local contractor started to clear the playing field behind the former school building where the tent-trailer temporary school was to be built. The field needed grading before asphalt could be poured. All debris had to be removed so as not to be a hazard for the school children.
In the midst of all this activity for the school, SBA and all other local, state and federal agency officials involved contin-
ued working ’round the clock and on a seven-day-a-week basis.
SBA. for example, has been contacted by more than 100,000 persons in the Gulf Coast section of Mississippi alone since the storm struck. SBA has more than 100 staffers manning its fifteen Disaster Offices in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. Another 100 are arriving from Washington, D. C. in the | next couple of weeks.	i
The Red Cross estimated that | more than 66.000 families have1 been directly affected in the stricken area. OEP has pulled together 15 federal agencies to assist in disaster recovery.
The Gulf Coast will be rebuilt as innumerable hand-painted signs proclaim and today's opening of St. Clare's Parochial School is but one example of what this determination and i “working together"’ really1 means.	j
As Sister M. Ruth. O.P., Prin- j cipal of the school says, “I nev-l er thought we could reopen in j two months, let alone two j weeks, but in the past 15 days | everyone here has thought ofj the children first—themselves j second. We are happy that we; will be able to serve.”	i