The devastation that spread across the Gulf Coast over the last week has reverberated personally for many Bakersfield College students and faculty.
Chalita Robinson, who retired last year after a long tenure as an art professor at BC, had recently moved to New Orleans to join family and renovate a warehouse into an art studio and living space. When the meteorologists expressed “this is the biggest storm they’d ever seen coming this way,” she began evacuating with her family to a hotel in Donaldsville, La.
According to friends in BC’s art department faculty, she is still residing in the hotel with parents, sister, nieces, nephews and their children.
Ron Jones, a defensive lineman on the BC football team who calls New Orleans his hometown, has family there who made it out of the disaster’s epicenter safely.
“I talked to my mom about two days ago; she had made it out safely to Houston,” Jones said. “She’s doing fine. I’m trying to see how to send money to her. She was at the shelter. It isn’t home, but it kind of gives you a warm feeling.
“It’s nothing like home, but she was telling me they gave you everything you need, not everything you want. People did great, helping out. Tell them I thank them not just for my family but for everybody. All those people in Houston opening up their homes for everybody, that’s a great thing,” Jones said.
Carl Singleton, a teammate of Jones, had what he termed “the best phone call of his life” last Friday when his mother, who had gone unheard from since the city flooded, finally got in touch with him via telephone.
Many BC students expressed outrage with the government response to disaster-plagued areas.
“The president has his hand in certain pockets, African-Americans can’t get the planes they need, but after 9/11 he made sure the (Saudi Arabian nationals) had one. In time of need people need to help, there should’ve been quick relief, not stupid articles with black and white kids holding soda and chips and underneath the blacks it’s called stealing and under the whites it’s called surviving,” said one person on campus who only wished to be identified as Davis.