Winter 2005

Alumni, Students Assist in Hurricane Relief
by David Piker

Faced with the overwhelming need to come to the aid of people, schools and businesses devastated by the effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita; Rose-Hulman alumni and students have responded by doing what engineers do best -- help improve people's lives.

Their positive, unselfish efforts to help residents of the Gulf Coast include alumni brothers who came out of retirement to help rebuild Mississippi's largest employer to other graduates and students who have volunteered to staff relief shelters, teach in a school, and rebuild a home.

Alumni Dick ('58)and Dave Trueb ('61) ended their retirements to join their brother Tom ('68) in his business to help insurance companies restore the Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The shipyard provides more than 10,000 jobs and is the state's largest employer.

While waiting to resume his job as a faculty member at Tulane University in New Orleans, alumnus Ron Anderson ('80) is volunteering as an instructor at Lutheran High School in Metairie, La. Until Anderson stepped forward, the small, private, collegeprep school had no one available to teach upper-level math and science courses.

As an area manager for Mississippi Power Company, Matt Warstler's ('93) responsibilities grew as did the workforce he had to manage as a result of the hurricanes. During the peak period when power was being restored to the Pearl River County for which he is responsible, Warstler's crew increased from 14 to 1,000 workers.

Back in Terre Haute, Sharon Foltz decided she needed to do more than make a financial contribution to aid hurricane victims. She became a Red Cross volunteer, took a leave from her job at the Eli Lilly & Co. facility in Clinton, Ind., and spent three weeks in Louisiana.

Alumni weren't the only ones who took action to help. Current Rose-Hulman students John Cergenul and Adam Ford spent their Thanksgiving break rebuilding a Louisiana home that was flooded by Hurricane Rita.

When Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana it created a storm surge of more than 13 feet that covered the Ingalls Shipyard immersing sophisticated and powerful shipbuilding equipment in salt water. The storm also destroyed hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space. Damage was estimated to be well over a billion dollars and officials believe it will take more than two years to restore the shipyard.

The Trueb brothers are among the engineers working on the unprecedented rebuilding project. Even though Tom Trueb, through work at efiSolutions, Inc., a consulting firm he founded, has been involved in projects to help insurance companies restore industrial plants back to productivity following natural disasters, fires, and explosions; this project called for the best help he could find. He knew where to find it. He recruited his brothers.

"The greatest challenges are faced by the shipyard managers, engineers and workers who are working from dawn to dusk to restore their workplace while dealing with their own losses as well," Trueb explained.

Trueb said progress is occurring as repairs have restored power and extensive cleaning and replacement will take place in the months ahead.

Ron Anderson will return to teaching as an associate professor of biomedical engineering on January 17 when Tulane University reopens for the Spring semester. Until then, Anderson's teaching will be vital to the Lutheran High School.

"The school wanted to open as soon as possible so it could bring some normalcy back in the lives of their students," said Anderson, who is teaching five math and science classes. "The school has taken in many students from other local, schools that were destroyed," he remarked.

Anderson noted that the schools in the area are in need of significant financial help. School officials anticipate having more of their teachers return in January.

Life changing is how Sharon Foltz describes her work to help nearly 1,500 people housed in a shelter in Shreveport, La. because of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"It was amazing to watch how people who had lost so much and did not know each other would bond together and help each other," Foltz recalled.

Foltz was trained by the Terre Haute Red Cross chapter and was assigned to the night shifts in two shelters in Shreveport. “We assisted in getting the first shelter in CenturyTel Arena open by unloading supply trucks and setting up cots and other supplies," said Foltz.

“After we closed it down, I was assigned to a second shelter that had been open 3 to 4 weeks. It had become a little city with a post office, computer lab, church services, pharmacy and counseling meetings," Foltz stated.

Matt Warstler was hardly settled in his new job for Mississippi Power before he found himself working with 1,000 colleagues from seven states and Canada to repair damages caused by Hurricane Katrina.

"I had moved from Atlanta six days before the storm," he said. "The work of all the crews was outstanding. We restored power to all our customers in 11 days," Warstler said in describing the dedication of the utility crews.

"We continue to provide new residential services to homes under repair and to additional FEMA-related housing facilities," he noted.

A discussion at church led Rose-Hulman sophomore, mechanical engineering majors John Cergenul and Adam Ford to give up their Thanksgiving break to work day and night to rebuild a home in Rynella, La.

Cergenul, Ford and Alicia Beyer, a student at Saint Mary ofthe- Woods College, used their time to make structural and electrical repairs to the home.

Cergenul wanted to use his construction skills to provide help to the hurricane-damaged area, according to an article in the New Iberia, La., daily newspaper.

Tom Trueb summed up the reactions of many of the Rose- Hulman volunteers when he said, "It's been a privilege to work alongside some of the most amazing people we have ever met who are taking this disaster in stride and rebuilding their communities, their employment and their lives with little complaining and with a great spirit. "Whatever we can do to help them will be a reward to us," Trueb emphasized.