A union's unsung heroes: New Orleans Teamsters who stayed behind to help

Matthew Shropshire, a Teamster hero at ABF

Observing the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we continue our look back at the disaster and the heroism of Teamsters who helped those in need. Today's post tells the story of two Teamsters in New Orleans who risked their lives to help those less fortunate in the community. 

Matthew Shropshire, an ABF driver and 30-year member of Local 270 in New Orleans, was ready to leave town when he received a call from one of his church members asking to help evacuate elderly congregants. Without hesitation, Shropshire stayed to assist, boarding up windows and transporting members from their homes to seek refuge elsewhere. He returned home that evening with the intention of leaving the next morning. Little did he know the levees would break:

The next morning I got a call from my daughter telling me the levees broke. I couldn’t believe how much water there was when I looked out the window. My SUV was sitting in the drive way and all I could see was the windshield up. It was that much water. By the time I went downstairs and opened the door, the water had made it to the top step. It was moving that fast.

Stranded in his upstairs bedroom, Shropshire spent days waiting to be saved. After four days with no sign of rescue, he and his neighbors began communicating from their top floor windows to discuss escape plans. Shropshire got to work on a makeshift raft using a door from his closet:

We could see the interstate through our windows and knew if we could make it to the overpass that we’d get picked up by someone. Finally I said, ‘If nobody has come by Wednesday I’m going to swim out. Wednesday came and me and my neighbors made our way through the water using my closet door as a raft. On the way to the overpass, I saw at least three bodies float by…We were picked up and relocated to the airport. When I saw all the body bags on the tarmac, I knew the death toll was going to be high. All we could do was pray that the others still stuck inside the city would be as lucky as us.

Richard Pierre, a Teamster hero at UPS

Like Shropshire, Local 270 member and UPS feeder driver Richard Pierre was helping members of his church the day before the storm, too. A part-time pastor of a church in East New Orleans, he also stayed behind to help those in need: 

I remember there was one woman with six children who needed her windows boarded and a blind elderly lady who needed to be transported to the church. The names of people needing assistance were piling up. I did everything I could to help anyone who needed help.

As a child of Hurricane Betsy, Pierre had an idea of what was to come when he heard the levees had failed. He also knew East New Orleans would be hit the hardest. A wall of water rushed toward Pierre while he was searching the streets for people in need of refuge:

I didn’t see it at first, but I could hear it intensifying. It sounded like a machine gun. Then I saw a huge wave of water coming my way. We started running back to the church. I’ll never forget seeing the lady in her car, flipping over and being washed away by the wave of water coming down the street. I watched out the window for hours as a man clung to a pole. Everything from shrimp to bricks to cars and tree branches were flying past him and hitting him. To this day, I still don’t know how he withstood the force of it all. He was flapping on that pole for seven hours straight. There was just no way for us to get to him.

Tired of watching helplessly, Pierre and another man decided to take action, risking their lives to swim out and rescue the man. Despite sustaining multiple injuries bringing the man to safety, he continued to brave the dangerous waters in the pursuit of helping others in the days before the helicopters arrived to transport him and the others to the Superdome, where he received immediate medical attention.

The resilience, courage and compassion of brave members like Richard and Matthew serve as two examples of how the Teamster spirit triumphs in the face of tragedy. A grateful union thanks them for their service and leadership.

Teamsters standing united: Mississippi rebuilds after storm

Bricks recovered from Teamster member Terry Bang's home,
destroyed in the hurricane, at IBT headquaters

With this week marking the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Teamster Nation continues its look back at the disaster and the aftermath, focusing on the unprecedented role played by Teamsters in the recovery. In today's story, we recount the experiences of two Teamsters who lost their homes to the storm. 

Often overshadowed by the flood in New Orleans, few remember that Hurricane Katrina veered east at the last minute and roared onshore at the Louisiana-Mississippi state line, making the Mississippi coastline ground zero.

When the waves and storm surge hit on August 29, the power of the water wiped out entire structures in the areas of Biloxi and Gulfport, demolishing buildings and homes for miles on end. Further inland, catastrophic flooding, spawn tornadoes and wind damage ravaged even more Mississippi residents.

For Local 891 member and former shop steward Terry Bang, the tenth anniversary of Katrina marks a decade since losing his home to one of those spawn tornados. As the majority of Bang’s home was blown away by a fierce funnel of wind accompanying Katrina, he, his wife, Michele, and their two college-age children huddled in the downstairs bathroom praying for their lives.

After the storm, Bang and his wife spent more than 18 months living in a 29 x 8-foot trailer parked in the driveway that FEMA provided.

Bang and his family

Bang is deeply grateful to all the help from Local 891 in the wake of the hurricane. He said members of the union found a way to contact him after the storm and bring supplies soon afterwards, which he claims made all the difference between moving forward and just surviving:

They were right there for us, making sure we had everything we needed. We have become an even tighter knit group since the storm. As a steward, it was also great to see new drivers being hired and trained to help with the workload. We all came together, as a union -- brother helping brother against the ills of life.

Mauffray with two crosses

For Bang’s coworker and fellow union member Bobby Mauffray -- along with his wife, Marla -- the storm took almost everything when their home was washed away by the 25-foot wall of storm surge. The only possessions the Mauffray’s have are the items they threw in the back of the truck on the way to Georgia -- that and 11 of the 12 pieces of their wedding china, plus two crystal crosses marking the birth of their children found in their lawn, sitting perfectly intact near where the door had been as if they were “waiting to be put away”:

All the way home I had a knot in my stomach. But once you see it the fear recedes. You start thinking about what you need to do first. You never know what to take when you rush out, what you might miss later. I’m not one to be attached to material things, but I was glad we thought to take some pictures with us. When I was going through the wreckage I found the tape of my four year-old daughter’s ultra sound. It was filled with muddy water. That really upset me.

Following the storm, Mauffray and Bang returned to work at UPS, driving routes that were unrecognizable due to the massive devastation. Both men say they were lucky to still have a job and grateful for the quick response from their fellow Teamster members.

As a show of his appreciation, Bang recovered bricks from his old home and signed “thank you” notes to those who helped, including Local 891 President W.C. Smith and Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa, which Hoffa still keeps in his office at IBT headquarters in Washington D.C.

10 years after Katrina: Teamsters recall unprecedented disaster, undaunted response

As we approach the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Teamster Nation looks back at the disaster and its aftermath, focusing on the unprecedented role played by Teamsters in relief efforts. We will be featuring stories throughout the week on the storm's impact on Teamster members and how the union has helped rebuild Gulf Coast communities.

Responding to emergencies of all kinds over the last century has created a strong, unique sense of pride and solidarity among all Teamster members. On the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, the Teamsters Union is looking back on how the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast recovered and rebuilt their homes, businesses and lives.

Teamsters raised nearly $1.4 million in disaster relief funds during 2005, distributing aid to more than 2,200 affected members through caseloads of food, water and other supplies. The Teamsters also worked with retailers, employers and others to send truckloads of food and goods to the affected areas as Teamster tractor trailers came from Los Angeles, Oregon, Chicago, Montreal, Boston, New York and everywhere in between.

Going where no other organizations would, Teamster drivers delivered food, water and ice into devastated areas of the city. In New Orleans, where an estimated 80 percent of the city was under water (up to 20 feet deep in some places), Teamsters were moving heavy equipment into 9th Ward to repair breached levees while others were evacuating.

The Teamsters took a leading role in providing national logistical support, assisting the American Red Cross as it moved tons of supplies and equipment into the area. The union joined more than 200 members of labor organizations assisting in the Baton Rouge area alone.

As the labor liaison to the Red Cross, Teamster human rights commissioner and Joint Council 13 member Roy Gillespie assisted more than 600 shelters to reclaim generators, cots and beds, refrigerators, televisions and more. He believes Teamster oversight helped save the Red Cross more than $2 million in costs, not including the more than $4 million worth of aid equipment. Furthermore, Gillespie aided the Red Cross and FEMA in establishing a regional disaster preparedness strategy - which remains in place today - to avoid repeating errors and speed rescue and recovery:

By reviewing transportation invoices, Teamsters were able to stop price gouging of unscrupulous trucking companies. The Teamsters demonstrated how the Red Cross could trim volunteer time and expenses through smarter pick-up and delivery patterns.

Thousands of labor members participated in relief efforts throughout the region. Nationally, nearly $3.6 billion in cash and in-kind services have been donated to aid Gulf Coast hurricane victims, including more than $1 billion from labor unions to build affordable housing, spur economic development and create union jobs.

“Labor’s role cannot be overstated,” Gillespie adds, noting that the Teamsters Union led the way.

Time and time again, the resilience of the Teamster spirit appears in the face of tragedy. As we look back this week on the events of Hurricane Katrina, let us remember the courage and compassion of affected members and the strength of our union.