Gulf crisis hits closer to home for Overgaard

by Rob Ruth

The unfolding Gulf Coast tragedy that has gripped the nation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina has commanded the attention of a few local residents even a little more.

One of these is Megan Overgaard, a biology teacher at Weiser High School and wife of the school’s principal, Wil Overgaard.
From the moment she learned New Orleans was a likely target for the storm as it rolled slowly westward in the Gulf gathering destructive strength, Mrs. Overgaard was keenly aware of Katrina. New Orleans is home to the Weiser teacher’s sister, Lisa Manthey, together with Lisa’s husband, Dr. Richard Manthey, and the couple’s four children.

Mrs. Overgaard said her sister, a nurse who teaches in New Orleans at Holy Cross University, didn’t take any chances a week-and-a-half ago with the approaching hurricane. On Saturday, Aug. 27, two days before the hurricane made landfall on the Gulf Coast, she packed all four kids and the family dog into a car and drove out of New Orleans. Mrs. Overgaard said Lisa initially headed east because that was the quickest way out of New Orleans at the time. The group traveled all the way to Alabama before reversing course to Baton Rouge, La., a relatively safe location in the home state, and from there they made their way to the home of relatives in Arkansas.

Dr. Manthey, a New Orleans native, was meanwhile committed to remaining in The Big Easy. The Mantheys’ home, located in a section of the city that sits a few feet above sea level, provided a safe haven from the inevitable floodwaters for Dr. Manthey’s two adult brothers, who are also New Orleans residents, and especially for the men’s octogenarian parents, whose own home on much lower ground would almost certainly be inundated. The parents just couldn’t muster the resolve ahead of time to leave the city entirely.

Not only did Dr. Manthey need to help all these family members weather Katrina’s wrath; he was also needed at work. He’s an emergency room physician at Ochsner Hospital, the only major New Orleans medical facility situated and equipped to remain fully functioning throughout the post-storm flooding crisis.

Mrs. Overgaard said she actually received a phone call from her brother-in-law the morning of Tuesday, Aug. 30, the day after the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast. She said he told her he had just arrived at work by bicycle, the only mode of ground transport that could negotiate all the obstacles in the streets. Observers along the way were evidently envious. “He said he could have sold it for $5,000,” Mrs. Overgaard said.

Dr. Manthey has been living at the hospital ever since he arrived for work that day, and his New Orleans relatives finally evacuated to Baton Rouge.

Mrs. Overgaard hails from Boise. Last Friday, one of her brothers, who still lives in Boise, flew to Arkansas to help sister Lisa drive her kids and dog to the City of Trees and Grandmother’s home, where the evacuees will reside for an undetermined period of time. Mrs. Overgaard said the kids will be enrolled in school in Boise on Thursday.

Mrs. Overgaard said a throng of approximately two dozen siblings and cousins was on hand to greet the evacuees when they pulled into the old Boise neighborhood Sunday evening. Within the crowd was Boise Mayor Dave Bieter, a cousin to Mrs. Overgaard.

Dr. Manthey, who performs five-day shifts in New Orleans, flew into Boise this week to be with his family for the first time since the day before the hurricane hit. He’s due back at work in New Orleans on Friday.

The future for this displaced family, as it is now for tens of thousands of others, is rather up in the air. “It’s all so unsettling as to what’s been happening to them,” Mrs. Overgaard said.
 

--WEISER SIGNAL AMERICAN
9/7/05