A Company Town on The Mississippi

Photos
A Bittersweet Life
Domino Sugar refinery workers and their families were forced to live in a FEMA trailer village outside the New Orleans plant late last summer after losing their homes to Hurricane Katrina floods.

Maraia, a Brooklyn-born son of a spring maker who started with Domino in 1974, lived in another parish and says he felt guilty about not losing his own home. He tried to keep his workers focused on the task of rebuilding, but his wife warned him, "Watch what you say, Pete; don't give them too much hope."

Using its contacts in the Louisiana Department of Economic Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the company got 270 trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The first question was whether to allow families or just employees to live in them. Some Domino managers questioned the wisdom of becoming a landlord, but the company decided the workers would be happier -- and more productive -- with their spouses and kids there.

By early December, Domino was producing a small daily run of 3 million pounds of sugar, less than half its normal production but still a comeback.

The strained labor relations that plagued Domino throughout the 1990s faded in the face of the crisis, says Milton J. Carr Jr., who represents the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1101. "I guess you could say we are in a honeymoon period right now," says Carr, who has worked at Domino for 33 years. "All honeymoons end, but right now we are lucky to have our jobs."

But the stress is catching up. Nearly two dozen employees and family members interviewed for this story see evidence of anxiety, depression, weight loss and abusive drinking. "I am filled with rage," says one wife, who was referred to a psychiatrist by a doctor working out of the temporary medical trailers in St. Bernard Parish. Another woman says her husband is drinking "real heavy."

Last week, Domino stepped up its employee assistance plan to provide counselors. "Our biggest challenges are ahead of us," Maraia says.

'The Wives Lost All Their Stuff'

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In the dark every morning, there is a quiet commute across the rocks to the refinery. Left behind in the trailers are the women, most of whom lost their jobs in the hurricane and now spend their days with cell phones pressed to their ears dealing with insurance adjustors, FEMA, the Small Business Administration and others. The nearest grocery store is an hour away, a trip necessitated every two or three days because the trailer refrigerators are so small.

"The men, the work was their life, they didn't lose that," says Carol Bachemin, smoking and drinking coffee in her trailer. "The wives lost all their stuff."

Inside another trailer, a woman uses a hair dryer on still-wet snapshots pulled from the wreckage of home.

And inside another: "I long for a bath, and a big bathtub," Kathy Sakowski says. "You miss all the little things in life. I miss washing my hair with real water pressure, fluffing it and drying it out. And where is my favorite pan? You think of things every day that you lost."

While their husbands work, some drive to their old neighborhoods 10 or 15 minutes away and gut their houses. Melissa Arbour has a red bleach burn on her arm from scrubbing walls. Sheri Meyer is sunburned from gutting hers. Wendy Miller bought rubber boots and cleared debris from her water-logged home. Then they come back to the trailers and make dinner.

"You are thankful you have a roof over your head," Lanette Labrosse says. "At the same time, you are cussing under your breath."