By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor
VENICE – This town of about 400 people at the southern end of Plaquemines Parish is near to bursting with newcomers. Venice is the closest point of land to the ruptured Deepwater Horizon wellsite. As many as 5,000 clean-up personnel – perhaps more! – are expected to converge on the town.
About 1,400 already fill a tent village at the south end of town, beyond which the road dead-ends. Several smaller groupings of people have squeezed in around town, and a flotilla of vessels offshore also houses people, said Steve McNeal, pastor of First Baptist Church of Venice.
It’s the overcrowded conditions, lack of entertainment and traffic tie-ups that are
wearing people down, McNeal said.
[img_assist|nid=6524|title=Gulf Oil Spill|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=83]“The media is trying to paint a picture down here of despair and how the oil industry has ruined peoples’ lives,” the pastor said. “That’s just not true. The people here are very tenacious. The emotional upheaval is simply because life is so difficult, and it happened so quickly, and it’s not going away, and you don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring.”
Shrimpers, for example, are used to managing their time and their lives, McNeal explained. They go out when they want to, come in when they want to, and dress the way they want to, which usually involves shorts and sneakers. As part of a clean-up crew, however, they’re told when to go out, how long to be out, and what to wear – including steel-toed boots.
An almost bigger frustration is that these are men used to working hard.
“They want to get out and work,” McNeal said. “They want to clean up the mess. Instead, it’s hurry up and wait and wait and wait. … There is frustration. Why is it still leaking? Why can’t we get it cleaned up? Why so much red tape? People are really wanting some solid answers, and all they’re getting is, ‘I don’t know.’ What happens if a big storm blows in? ‘I don’t know.’ How many gallons are really leaking? ‘I don’t know.’ Just a lot of unanswered questions. That causes frustration.”
Everyone is busy, the pastor said. Those who were unemployed are employed; those who were employed are now working overtime.
“The face of the community has changed drastically,” McNeal said. “Eventually if it doesn’t settle down, the emotions are going to climax. I’m trying to be ready for whatever happens.
“I see there is such a tremendous potential for emotional problems in the future with the families because this is such a drastic quick change in lifestyle,” the pastor continued. “Hopefully people will be able to be flexible, to go with the flow.”
First Baptist Venice is in the final stages of being rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina. The completion target date is September. Once in its building, the church plans to offer exercise two nights a week for men, and two nights a week for women – if it can find the equipment to do so.
Movie nights also are being planned. So too are ESL and GED classes, to be taught by Bonnie McNeal, who has a doctorate in education administration, as well as public meetings on demand.
“We have had some contact with fresh faces,” McNeal said. “A young man gave his testimony that he’d been wandering from God; he wanted to come back to the Lord. His parents wanted to watch his baptism, and his brother came along. Then his brother decided he wanted to be baptized too. And then they left town.”
As a bivocational pastor – he’s a firefighter – McNeal would like a chaplain to come in and stay several months, to become established and recognized in the community so that as people get to know him, they come to trust him and start confiding in him, as a way of releasing some of the tension they’re under.
“I am looking forward to someone who can come down, have meetings with people at large and making themselves available several times a week,” McNeal said. “I’m hoping for a longterm guy. I don’t know how God’s going to work it out.”