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Computers, Signs Bring Despair, Hope to Evacuees

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Times Staff Writer

Balancing her year-old son her on knee, Danielle Liggins on Sunday leaned forward in her chair and desperately studied a computer screen in a crowded room in the bowels of the Astrodome, the city’s main shelter for Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

Liggins, 31, read a long list of names and then, in a rush of relief and joy, said with a trembling voice, “He’s alive, he’s alive!”

She had found the name of her father, Don Liggins Jr., on the list of Katrina survivors on a Family Links Registry maintained on the Red Cross website. He was safe at another shelter in Houston.

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With nearly 1.5 million people forced to flee Katrina, the job of reuniting survivors appears daunting.

“These families have been broken apart,” said Red Cross official Margaret O’Brien-Molina.

With telephone service knocked out in the early stages of Katrina, many families lost contact with loved ones. Even families that fled together became separated in the chaos of the Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center.

As Katrina evacuees searched for loved ones, Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced Sunday that his state’s ability to help evacuees had been severely strained.

Perry said airlifts from Dallas and San Antonio would take newly arrived evacuees to other states. He said 100,000 evacuees were staying in hotels and motels in Texas and an additional 139,000 were in 137 shelters.

“We are concerned about our capacity to meet this great human need as thousands more arrive by the day,” the governor said.

Katrina survivors have told of being split apart by panicky evacuation efforts. To help families reunite, the Red Cross, supported by volunteers and IBM, Yahoo and other computer-linked businesses, has established a computer grid where survivors can register their names and search for relatives and others. The computer project began Saturday.

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Latalya Holly, 45, found her aunt’s name, Cory Lee Holly, on the computer lists. “Thank God,” she said. “She’s right here and I never knew it.”

The Red Cross has about 70 terminals in the major evacuation shelters in Houston, with plans to add them in others. The registry can be accessed by the agency’s website, www.redcross.org, or a special phone number, (877) LOVED-1S.

Almost as soon as evacuees began arriving Thursday night, they started posting notes in the Astrodome pleading for information on lost family members.

By Sunday, a bulletin board erected in what once was the home plate area of the Astrodome was swamped by hundreds, if not thousands, of messages:

“Looking for Jessica and Haley Munch,” said one that was accompanied by a picture of two small girls. “Ledonna looking for Jessie Jones.” “Calvin Bacques call Eddie Martinez.” “Missing: Michael Joseph Wilson.” And more and more, some with pictures, some with phone numbers, some in French.

Volunteers are now stationed at tables in front of the bulletin board, taking down information that will be given to volunteers to feed into computers.

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The notes are reminiscent of fliers posted in lower Manhattan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Outside the Astrodome, families carried posters and pleaded for help from passersby.

One sign reads: “If Rochelle Roberts, Lantanya Roberts, Justine Simpson, Gail Roberts, Jonathan Roberts, Ervin Caro, Elvin Triggs, Lewis Triggs or Karen Triggs are found,” please call Gregory Roberts.

While there is a bumper crop of volunteers for most chores, the computer center could use more help. It takes computer skills and tact.

“Some of our evacuees are not familiar with computers, and we need to help them with dignity and respect,” said Jim Forrest, business development officer for a Houston nonprofit, Technology for All Inc., who is running the center. “We’ve got to get people reconnected.”

Outside the computer center, where sports fans once stood in line for hot dogs and beer, there are now 200 phones for evacuees to call family members. The Social Security Administration has opened an office to help evacuees who qualify for benefits.

Throughout the area devastated by Katrina, fractured families continue to struggle to find their loved ones.

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Child welfare authorities in Louisiana are particularly worried about 127 children and infants who had been separated from their parents.

“Some of them are too young to tell us their names,” said Marketa Garner Gautreau of the Louisiana Department of Social Services. “Some of them were just pulled in a different direction when people were pushing to get on a bus.”

Many families became separated during the evacuation process, officials said, leaving members “stuck between states.” One mother gave her baby to a stranger and watched as the bus drove away.

On the floor of the Astrodome, where thousands of evacuees are sleeping on cots, it is not unusual to hear an evacuee joyfully announce that he or she has found a relative alive.

“It sends chills up my spine when I hear it,” said County Assessor Paul Bettencourt, one of the leaders of the Harris County effort to help evacuees.

But it is also not unusual to hear deep disappointment from those unsuccessful in their searches.

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After finding her father, whom she hadn’t seen for a couple of weeks, Danielle Liggins searched for her uncles, Oliver and Roland Broussard. With the help of a volunteer, she searched the site without success. The joy of a moment earlier had vanished.

“My uncles were stubborn and hardheaded, and I don’t know if they would ever leave New Orleans,” she said.

“I have to think the worst.”

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Ellen Barry and Lianne Hart contributed to this report from Baton Rouge.

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