Katrina help needed here, too Katrina help needed here, too (September 23, 2005)

By Jeb Bing

Calls from local families who need help in caring for Hurricane Katrina evacuees who are now living with them and offers of help from scores of residents have turned this office into a virtual clearinghouse for bringing the two groups together. And that's fine with us. As Pleasanton businesses, schools, organizations and others send millions of dollars to the Red Cross relief effort for Katrina victims in the South, we can't forget those who fled the storm and floods to take up temporary shelter with family, friends and volunteers in Pleasanton and other cities in California. At last count, several hundred newly homeless families have come to the Bay Area, with many settling in Alameda County. Although the school district is keeping tabs on Louisiana and Mississippi students who have enrolled here, there's no central registry of who has taken in families and individuals who aren't in school. So we're glad to help.

Help hasn't come easily. Take Debbie Bell, the Lemonwood Way mother we wrote about Sept. 9 who encouraged her brother Frank Silliker, their 74-year-old mother and Frank's daughter Jennifer, 16, to come to stay with her two teenage daughters and husband Read, who works at Cisco and commutes daily to San Jose. The Sillikers fled their home in Kenner, near the New Orleans airport, after the levees broke and water started flooding downtown New Orleans where Frank Silliker works. The next day after the Sillikers arrived, carrying only what they could take on the plane, they enrolled Jennifer at Foothill High School. There, thanks to the generosity of Foothill and classmates, as well as the school district, she received complimentary student passes to games and events, a calculator for her advanced placement math class, and academic books and supplies.

But there the help stopped. Despite registering with FEMA Aug. 31, as Frank Silliker was told to do, it was only last Monday that $2,000 was placed in his checking account, an emergency grant FEMA and President Bush ordered more than two weeks ago. Until then, calls to FEMA and e-mails went unanswered. The Red Cross, which is paying for hotel rooms and other expenses of those who evacuated to greater New Orleans hotels, sent $95 to each of the Sillikers, but then told Debbie Bell that was all they would get. Part of the money they've received will go to pay the $900 plane ticket to travel from Houston, where Frank parked the family car, to San Francisco.

Last week, we pictured Rachel Carriere and her two daughters, Victoria, 13, and Lauren, 10, a New Orleans family that is now living in the home of Ken and Doreen Harper, thanks to a connection with Andrea and Earl Roger, Prudential Real Estate brokers. The Harpers have been empty nesters for several years, so it's back to a full house and household expenses once again. Since the photos of the Carrieres and Jennifer Silliker ran, calls have continued to come in from around town with offers of new clothes and financial help. We've put a Northwest Airlines agent in touch with the Sillikers. She saw our story about Frank Silliker's car still being in the Houston airport parking lot and will try to get it moved without any accumulated charges to a free employee lot. Local mothers Maria Latsis and Jackie Irby have teenagers who have new and slightly worn clothes that might fit one or more of the three teenagers we featured, so they're now in touch.

So far, five Pleasanton schools now have students enrolled from the Hurricane Katrina area. With thousands of people still being resettled from evacuation areas they were sent to temporarily, it's likely more will come to Pleasanton whose host families here will need our help. If you want to help locally, call me at 600-0840, Ext. 18.

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