Press Releases: 2005-06
After The Storm: Richard Woods Now Calls DeKalb ‘Home’
September 14, 2005
Richard Woods has relocated to DeKalb from his hometown of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Woods is not sure of the amount of damage to his home and still has not heard from his Dad and Great Grandmother who remained in New Orleans to weather the hurricane. The community college he attended in New Orleans was destroyed and he is newly enrolled in Kishwaukee College. He is pictured in his journalism class at Kish.
When Richard Woods decided to visit his friend Sam Balfour in DeKalb for the weekend, he didn’t know he would be bunking with Sam for the long haul while his life took a huge detour in a whirlwind of change-- a Level 4 Hurricane whirlwind named Katrina.
Woods, 20, evacuated to DeKalb to visit his friend while the predicted hurricane blew along the Gulf Coast and his hometown of New Orleans. “You have to understand,” he explains, “in New Orleans, we get hurricane warnings every year. Some people evacuate, some stay. I usually use a warning as a reason to visit Sam here. But now I’m staying.”
With only enough clothes packed for what the Delgado Community College student thought would be a weekend, Woods found himself job hunting, enrolling in Kishwaukee College, and riding his roommate’s bike everywhere he needs to go. At Delgado, he was a Performance and Media Arts major with a concentration in Print and Broadcast Journalism. Delgado’s main campus in New Orleans was near a levee; “was” is the operative word. Delgado’s main campus is gone.
Woods is one of the 75,000—100,000 college and university students that the American Council on Education estimates have been displaced by Katrina. In some ways, Woods is one of the luckier of those students—he moved to DeKalb, a city much smaller and safer than New Orleans, and enrolled in Kishwaukee, a college filled with friendly people who helped him put together a full-time course schedule in the span of two days.
Governor Rod Blagojevich issued a call to all Illinois colleges and universities to accommodate students who were displaced by the hurricane from their Gulf Coast institutions of higher education. With approval of the Board of Trustees, Kishwaukee College will waive tuition for these students for Fall 2005 and Spring 2006 and will work with the students to defer payment of fees and bookstore charges if necessary.
Woods says, “Everybody at Kish has been real supportive and helpful.” Woods rides his bike to and from the College everyday and enjoys the cornfields and wide openness of DeKalb County. “The fields are a nice change from the buildings I grew up around in New Orleans,” he explains. “And you have big sky here. It’s beautiful.”
Woods’ mother evacuated to a relative’s home in Tennessee prior to Katrina. His Dad and Great Grandma, who raised him, stayed in New Orleans. “My Dad and Grandma never evacuated. I haven’t heard from them yet,” he says. “After the hurricane, my Mom called me here and told me there is no reason to go back to New Orleans. She was making a new life for herself and I should do the same.”
Woods says that the Red Cross has been very helpful and he differs with the media’s portrayal of how the federal agencies are handling the hurricane’s aftermath. “I am surprised they are handling it as well as they are,” he says. “It is a huge job, a huge area. It’s pretty amazing.” As long as he can remember, Woods has heard that one day the levees around the city of New Orleans would break. “Everybody saw it coming, but still didn’t expect it to happen,” he says. “It’s one of those things you know is inevitable, but assume it will happen after your time.”
Richard Woods does miss some of the things in New Orleans, especially the food. “I used to go to this restaurant, Dante’s Kitchen. The chef was an artist, he could make the most everyday food taste fantastic,” he recalls. “I miss my books, too. I like to read dreary Russian novels…I love Russian culture. But all my books are in my house in New Orleans. I don’t know what’s left there.” Although Woods likes the autumn weather in northern Illinois, he knows he will miss the 70 and 80 degree January days back home in the Big Easy. “I don’t think I will be riding my bike here in winter,” he drawls with a smile.
