It’s been 20 years since one of the worst hurricanes ever hit the U.S.
Hurricane Katrina killed more than 13-hundred people and caused $125 billion in damage along the Gulf Coast.
New Orleans bore the brunt of the storm, but it left damage along the coast.
In that time of need, teachers and students from Pittsburgh answered the call for help.
Channel Eleven’s Rick Earle traveled with them on their first trip to Mississippi 20 years ago.
That one visit led to nearly a dozen trips over a decade to help the residents of Bay St. Louis.
Earle went with the teachers on their first trip.
During the next ten years, they would return every year with groups of high school students who volunteered their time to help rebuild homes and lives torn apart by Hurricane Katrina.
Earle recently sat down with Richard Yount, the man who organized the relief effort, and a chaperon who participated in a number of trips.
Earle: Is it hard to believe it’s been 20 years?
Yount: Yes and no. It seems like yesterday, but I know I’ve gotten 20 years older.
20 years ago and just three months after Hurricane Katrina, Yount and a group of teachers from Baldwin High School boarded a small jet at the Allegheny County Airport.
“We’re going to go down and assess the situation and see exactly what the people need,” said Yount at the time.
The group headed to the Mississippi coast. They had seen the devastation and destruction on television and wanted to help.
Earle also traveled with them.
“There we go, we just touched down in Mississippi,” said Earle.
They landed in Biloxi and drove to Bay St. Louis.
There was damage and destruction everywhere.
“The storm surge from the bay slammed into Bay St. Louis, and now nearly three months later, the beach here is still littered with debris,” Earle reported at the time.
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” said Yount.
One of the first stops, the Bay St. Louis school district.
“We’re here to help,” said Yount, when he arrived at the temporary offices they were working out of.
“Once I did go I felt like I had to keep going. There was so much to do,” said Yount, during an interview this week at his home in Crafton.
That one trip 20 years ago, led to a decade long mission to Mississippi to rebuild homes and lives.
Yount showed us pictures and memorabilia from his trips.
“This was a house we built in four days,” Yount said.
Yount, an english teacher at Baldwin High School and fellow teachers launched Vision Club.
They recruited students.
“This is a 93 year old lady who lost everything,” said Yount.
They helped put insulation in her home and built a railing for her handicap ramp.
Every year for a decade, students on their easter break would travel to the gulf coast to help those devastated by Katrina.
“We put up at least two houses from scratch, remodeled probably half a dozen. We did drywall work electrical work, plumbing work,” said Yount.
The students raised funds, and paid their own way. Yount and chaperone Kevin Clancy said students were eager to help.
“A lot of these students started out not knowing which end of the nail to drive into the wall, and now they’re asking their parents for power tools for Christmas,” said Clancy.
Yount and Clancy, whose two daughters participated, teamed up with Habitat For Humanity in Mississippi and Brother’s Brother in Pittsburgh.
For a decade from 2005 to 2015, Yount made at least ten trips with more than 200 students and 70 chaperones.
“It was like they came along side of us and said how can we help and I still tear up when I think about it,” said Donna Torres, who was with the Bay St. Louis school district when Katrina hit.
Earle and the teachers met Torres on that first trip, 20 years ago.
Today, she fondly recalls the helpers from Pittsburgh.
She said Yount put together most of the furniture to get the administrative offices up and running again.
“We were able to see the best of humankind, the best of our neighbors and you wouldn’t normally think of Pittsburgh being a neighbor, but truly that neighborhood spirit came out of that,” said Torres.
“That’s the reason we kept going back. They were incredibly appreciative. They couldn’t do enough for us, and they had nothing,” said Yount.
It’s been ten years since Yount and his students wrapped up their work in Mississippi, and 20 years since the devastating Hurricane, but they saw the incredible transformation.
“Watching the evolution from the total devastation to coming back as a community, you just can’t beat that. It was amazing,” said Clancy, who served in the military and is now retired.
Yount: For the most part it looks like a brand new city.
Earle: And that’s all thanks to you and your students?
Yount: Well, most of the kids and the chaperones. I was just the organizer.
The organizer who made it all happen.
Yount retired from teaching in 2010, but continued leading students to Mississippi until 2015.
He still does some volunteer work with Habitat For Humanity.
He said he misses the yearly trips to Mississippi, but he’s glad he played a small part in helping to rebuild the communities along the Gulf coast.
Yount said he couldn’t have done it without the support of the Baldwin School District.
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