Franco '08 travels to Louisiana to volunteer

The images of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina inspired sympathy and horror in students who watched on TV, but they inspired Eugene Franco '08 to buy a plane ticket to Baton Rouge and take part in an enormous relief effort.

"I kind of felt compelled to do it because I'm from NYC, and after 9/11, the whole country sent donations and contributed expertise to the clean up effort and the rescue effort there," Franco said. "I had just been seeing all the horrific images of people infected from head to toe and helicopters rescuing people who had been living on their rooftops for days."

Franco left for Louisiana less than a week after the hurricane hit. He wanted to participate in an organized on-site relief effort, but not knowing of any, he searched thefacebook.com for Louisiana State University students who could refer him to a relief effort organization and house him during his five-day stay.

"I had seen on a newscast that LSU was using its assembly center and its track and field house as a triage center and a special needs facility for people who have special needs like diabetes," Franco said. "I used theFacebook to contact students there to see if they needed volunteers."

Jonathan Hafemann, the LSU student with whom Franco stayed in Baton Rouge, said, "It was really fun to have Eugene around. I was a little skeptical at first because I wasn't really sure who I was letting into my home, but I figured that if he was coming down and paying his way, I would take the risk of letting him stay with me."

Franco was disappointed to learn that the Red Cross was not taking volunteers without specific medical training. But he was able to find another organization in need of general assistance.

Franco arrived just as LSU students were returning to school on Sept. 6. Many students, who had begun school a week before the hurricane hit, stayed on campus after the disaster to assist evacuees. But since Princeton started later, Franco felt he could be of assistance by replacing the LSU students who would now have classes to attend.

When he arrived for his first day of work, Franco found that the school was using its outdoor track as a landing pad for the helicopters and its assembly center as a morgue and a triage center, identifying critically injured patients.

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"My first night, I was working with one of my [LSU] roommates, Craig, and we went to a K-Mart. It was converted to a field hospital. There were cots and cribs and some physicians there from Iowa who had come to volunteer," he said. But Franco found that no patients had been directed to the facility because of an apparent miscommunication.

"At the time, I thought maybe everyone had been treated, and I thought perhaps there was no need for the field hospitals," Franco said. "I didn't know any better because I hadn't seen the situation elsewhere."

Franco's work there consisted of helping to transport supplies to other relief sites, primarily churches.

The next day, Franco sat at the information desk distributing brochures about where people could get tetanus shots or a hot meal, since LSU could only supply those services to patients in the facility.

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Franco said he was surprised that "all this info was scattered about, and there was no central organizing unit. A nurse and myself were calling around and compiling the information that we could find into handouts."

Hundreds of miles from campus, Franco encountered several fellow Tigers.

Working alongside him at the information desk was the wife of Princeton alumnus and LSU physics professor Michael Cherry '71.

Additionally, Franco came into contact with a Princeton alum who had been evacuated from New Orleans with her mother. "She was looking for a place to fill a prescription and seemed pretty concerned about that, so I didn't really catch her name or anything," he said.

Franco's time in Louisiana changed his personal views on individual responsibility in crisis situations, and he now wants to take an EMT class to be better prepared for such emergencies.

"My whole experience really opened my eyes up to the importance of service ... before [my time in Louisiana] I had always thought that it was the domain of the government to provide all of the relief effort [in cases of national disaster], but it has become clear to me that the private citizen contributed as much if not more [than the government] in this situation," he said.

Back on campus, Franco is happy to see his fellow students trying to make a difference. "Students have the luxury of not having kids and family to care for and relatively large amounts of free time," Franco said. "I'm glad to see Princeton students sitting at tables collecting donations and organizing these efforts. It's been very heartening."