Hurricane Katrina: 5 Years Later
By
WKTV News
Story Created:
Aug 25, 2010 at 6:31 AM EST
Story Updated:
Aug 25, 2010 at 6:31 AM EST
(WKTV) - The fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is this Sunday, so we are taking a look back at some local people who headed south to help the victims of one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.
We spoke to two people from the Mohawk Valley Small Business Development Center who went to help small business owners. David Mallen and Sam Russo said it feels like just yesterday they went down to New Orleans six months after the hurricane struck. They worked for 8 days in a former department store helping people get the financing they desperately needed.
The main problem they said they ran into is people had little to no paperwork; much of it had been destroyed by flood waters. "We were trying to build it all from scratch and all from memory," Russo said.
Their cases ranged from good to bad. One retired woman Mallen worked with was trying to open up a hair salon just to make some money. "Here she is, retired, living in a shed with no insurance, and she is talking about opening up a small business so she could support herself," Mallen said.
Not all of their cases were stories of sadness or despair. Russo worked with a couple who owned a plumbing company. "They were actually flourishing. They couldn't keep up with demand. They had and were trying to very quickly access the financing."
Mallen and Russo said it was a whirlwind trip, but one they wouldn't trade for anything.
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