Alum Volunteeers in Katrina Aftermath

Several days after Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Deep South, Daniel Newton sat in his comfortable apartment near the University of Virginia campus, logged onto Firehouse.com, and scrolled through news accounts of the devastation and rescue efforts in the afflicted areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

The more the 19-year-old 2004 Collegiate School graduate read, the more his heart ached for the people whose lives had been shattered by this natural disaster of incomprehensible proportions. There must be something I can do to help, he thought. He certainly had the expertise. As soon as he turned 16, he had begun training as an emergency medical technician, and in September 2002 he ran his first call for Manakin Company 1 of the Goochland Fire and Rescue Department.

Subsequently, he earned his certification as a firefighter and somehow balanced his humanitarian calling with the time demands of his academic and athletic endeavors. In three years, he’d gained a wealth of experience, and each foray into the unknown tested his skills, his mettle, and his emotions.

There were the automobile accidents with fatalities.  There were the frantic late-night distress calls from families who entrusted their loved ones’ lives to the sometimes anonymous men and women who arrived with lights flashing and sirens blaring. And there was one plea for help from an elderly gentleman in a remote area of the county who, they found, needed only a Band-Aid for his bleeding finger.

As Newton and his crew administered to him, they learned that he saw very few people on a regular basis, that his daughter stopped by only every couple of weeks to take him to the grocery, and that he was simply lonely and needed someone to talk to. His dilemma tugged at Newton’s heartstrings.

So here he was, enjoying the beginning of his sophomore year, when he saw on the website an urgent appeal for firefighters to travel to New Orleans and work for FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“I’m not usually this spontaneous,” he said one night recently via cell phone, “but when the call came for volunteers, I started thinking seriously about it right away. “I realized this was pretty huge and that there was so much to be done.  In the future, I wanted to look back and say that I did my part to help.”

First, he placed a call to his friend and fellow EMT Joseph Barrick, a student at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, who agreed to join him on this adventure of a lifetime. The next day, a Sunday six days after Katrina delivered her wrath, he called his parents.

“We were worried, of course,” said his mother Nina, “but Daniel has always been extremely passionate about his work with the rescue squad, and we could feel that he wanted to be there.

“We told him we love him and support him, but be very, very careful.”

On Monday, UVA officials gave their blessing, and a couple of days later, he headed to Atlanta for training, then to a staging area in Baton Rouge, then to New Orleans.

Newton’s first assignment took him to Algiers, an impoverished suburb of New Orleans that had been heavily damaged by the Category 5 winds but escaped major flooding. He and a team of 18 firefighters were directed to go door to door and assist people who were stranded in their homes. The problem was that Algiers was the scene of violence and random gunfire, all well documented in the national media. They were escorted in by police and watched over by National Guardsmen wielding M-16’s. They saw looters and gangs in action.“It was a little scary,” Newton said with a laugh.  

“Even the police officers thought we were crazy, but everyone in my group decided we’d give it a try, and if somebody started shooting, we’d leave.  We figured we couldn’t help anybody if we were shot.”

They accomplished their mission, thankfully, without facing any violence.

After his stint in Algiers ended, Newton helped out at a Red Cross center handing out food, water, and other necessities. Now, he’s part of a team going through New Orleans checking the structural integrity of buildings, a skill he learned during his training to be a firefighter.

“Daniel is professional, qualified and dedicated to the work,” said Eddie Ferguson, deputy chief of Goochland Fire and Rescue.  

“He’s demonstrated those qualities time after time in the county, and we’re certain he’s putting them to use in New Orleans.”

In the span of a few weeks, Newton has traded his air-conditioned comforts to live first in a tent city, then in an abandoned office building, and now in the home of a generous doctor who vacated to make room for the volunteers. While his quarters have been almost luxurious by local standards, by day he’s seen a dismal side of life that just a month ago he could hardly imagine.

“It’s evident that something really bad has happened, and the pictures you see on the news are pretty accurate,” he said. “Everything has a dingy look, and you just can’t get away from the smell. “There’s a lot of trash and dead animals.  It’s an eerie feeling being on a deserted street with abandoned cars and all that debris.  It’s a whole sensory experience.”

Newton’s initial commitment to FEMA was for 30 days. He’ll re-up for another 30, but when that tour ends, he isn’t sure how long he’ll stay, only that he’ll return to UVA (where he plans to major in biochemistry) for the second semester.

All things considered, he’s holding up well, going about his business each day, and seeing nothing extraordinary or even heroic about his selflessness.

“This is almost like another call,” he explained, “just bigger and farther from home. “I was lucky enough to have good training, and I’m doing what I was trained to do.

“A lot of people have helped out down here. I’m just grateful that I can help in a more direct way.”

If you had it to do over again, I asked him, would you still put your life on hold, take time off from school, and travel to the battle zone that’s New Orleans not knowing what perils awaited?

“Absolutely,” he replied without a moment of hesitation.