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Posted on Sun, Nov. 06, 2005
THE ROADS
Student tries
craft on Katrina's aftermath
A Roads area student accompanied a relief trip to Mississippi to document efforts there.
Josh Anderson, 15, is now collecting the material for a slide show.
BY KIRA WISNIEWSKI
For The Herald
The
evening before Hurricane Wilma hit South Florida, 15-year-old Josh Anderson set up a tripod to take long exposures of the
stormy sky.
He also took several pictures after the storm, but the devastation did not compare to what he saw this
fall on a trip to the Gulf Coast.
Josh, an aspiring photojournalist and freshman at the Academy of Arts and Minds in
Coconut Grove, was invited to join a hurricane relief effort trip to the Gulf Coast from Sept. 26 through Oct. 5.
The
trip was funded by the Retired Miami Police and Fire Department Association with support from Stop the Hunger, a food bank
in North Miami.
''It's taken a lot longer for the Gulf Coast to recover,'' said Josh, a resident of the Roads area.
``Three days after Wilma we were at the same level of recovery as three weeks after Katrina, when I went up there.''
Though
Josh was surprised by the amount of destruction in South Florida, it consisted mostly of power outages and downed trees.
During
his trip to the Gulf Coast, Josh encountered an array of people with a variety of stories.
In Biloxi, Miss., Josh and
retired Miami police officer Timothy Young met a man who helped people whose homes were flooded up to the second floor.
The
man explained that the water rose slowly until he was awakened suddenly by water rushing through his home. He retreated to
the attic, though six inches of flooding crept even that high.
David Donaldson, the Neighborhood Resource Officer for
Overtown, helped coordinate the project and got Josh involved. The two met at Temple Israel where Donaldson noticed Josh's
skill as a photographer.
''I wanted him to go up and document the relief efforts and shoot the devastation and be able
to talk to people first hand,'' Donaldson said.
Josh and Young drove to Hattiesburg, Miss., where they centralized
their relief efforts. Young's mother, Raylawni Branch, is involved with the Red Cross there.
''We gave things out directly
to the people,'' Young said. ``He documented everything that we did, from unloading the trucks to coming back home and he
did an excellent job.''
The Miami Police Department brought two tractor trailers with supplies and used a 26-foot long
truck to distribute supplies all over Mississippi.
Josh shot more than 2,000 photos during the trip. Due to safety
and health constraints, they were unable to go to New Orleans.
However, they did go near the coast for two days during
the trip."
''There it's just totally destroyed -- it's very emotional,'' Josh said.
He did manage to take quite
a few pictures illustrating the level of destruction. In one photo he shot a set of steps leading up to a house that had vanished.
Another
picture shows a car banked by train tracks and surrounded by debris.
Most of his photos illustrated relief efforts
to assist the many victims, by shuttling boxes of supplies. One photo depicts two young girls carrying a large box of supplies
up a hill to their home.
Another shows a young barefoot boy rummaging through a box of goods while others wait in line
by the truck.
Mississippi was a taste of the real world for Josh, as he was able to get out into the field and work.
''Once
I was out there in the hot sun with 30-40 pounds of camera gear on, it was a shift in the right direction and I truly liked
it,'' said Josh, who was also in South Miami Middle's magnet arts program.
Now, as a student at the recently created
Academy of Arts and Minds, his teachers are allowing him to continue to hone his skills as a photographer in the Visual Arts
program.
Mathew Gitkin, dean of students at the Academy, has been impressed with Josh even though he's only been at
the school for a short time. ''Usually as the dean of students, you know them because they are either very good or very bad.
Seeing as we're only 11 weeks into the school year and I know him very well says a lot,'' said Gitkin.
Josh is currently
preparing his photos for a slide show that is slated to be shown around Thanksgiving at the Miami Police Department and eventually
at his school.
Many of his teachers also want to incorporate his experience into other subjects.
''[My English
teacher] wants me to write how I can relate the book Lord of the Flies to this,'' Josh said.
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