By Carmen K. Sisson

MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, Ala. — Admittedly, the Gulf Coast hamlet of Magnolia Springs, Ala., is an easy place to overlook. Here, the mail is still delivered by boat, and the closest thing to a seafood industry is standing in line for blackfish at Jessie’s, the only restaurant in town.

President Obama did not put it on his itinerary this week, and when BP workers showed up in mid-May, they laid a single strand of boom across the mouth of the bay and left. The boom floated away hours later.

Magnolia Springs isn’t exactly a linchpin of the Alabama economy.

Yet if the Gulf oil spill arrives here this week as scientists have forecast, it will not find the town unprepared. A flotilla of nine spud barges – flanked by containment boom – will be waiting, ready to block the 530-foot-wide entrance to Weeks Bay.

If all goes according to plan, these rusted steel behemoths will form an impenetrable barrier, defending the estuary’s 19 federally-protected species and the vital marshland which serves as a nursery for shrimp and other seafood so crucial to the Gulf Coast region.

They will also preserve an unspoiled way of life.

The blockade is being led by Jamie Hinton, the local volunteer fire chief who, at one point, was faced with the possibility of being jailed for violating the federal and state chain of command.

His resourcefulness is a parable not only of how desperate Gulf Coast communities have become to save the shorelines on which their lives have taken root, but also of the confusion that can consume and undermine such a massive relief effort.

In the end, Magnolia Springs did not need BP or Mr. Obama or the governor in Montgomery. It needed the grit and determination of the people themselves – people like Hinton, who says he will stand chest-deep in the waters of the bay, linked arm in arm with his neighbors, if that’s what it takes to stop the encroaching oil from despoiling the sublime latticework of bogs and bayous that he calls home.

Hinton’s plan

Soft-spoken and polite, Mr. Hinton doesn’t fit the image of a rabble-rouser, but still waters run deep. He is passionate about this wildly beautiful place.

The plan he has been charged with implementing was the product of exhaustive community input. It is an attempt to defeat those forces of nature that have often defeated the Coast Guard and BP elsewhere. Boom is effective when placed properly, but even in relatively calm waters, some oil will always go over and beneath it. In Weeks Bay, where there is a constant one- to two-foot chop, booming is an extra challenge.

That’s where Hinton’s barges come in. Hinton hopes they will break any wave action, allowing the boom laid in front of and behind them to hold the oil.

It’s not a fail-safe plan, Hinton acknowledges. He would know. He has more than 400 hours of hazardous materials training, including booming instruction. “Can’t say [the oil] is going to make it through and can’t say it won’t,” he says.

But at least it’s a plan. Nobody else seemed inclined to do much of anything for Magnolia Springs, he says. When he first began gathering resources, county officials told him he was blowing things out of proportion, that it was just sweet crude.

“I don’t care if it’s sweet, sour, light, or black,” he says. “I don’t want it in my river.”

Others told him the government would handle it. He scoffed. He remembered the Exxon Valdez, hurricane Katrina, hurricane Ivan. If anyone was going to save Magnolia Springs, it wouldn’t be the feds, BP, or environmental activists. It would be the thousand-odd people who live here. After all, the locals knew the water – knew every twist and turn of Magnolia River, Fish River, and Weeks Bay. They would handle things the way they always did – together.

While the community struggled to get its plan approved by Deepwater Horizon Unified Command, BP workers arrived with their own plan: They laid a straight line of boom across the bay, tied it to pylons with rope, and left. Hinton tried to tell them the pylons were encrusted with barnacles, but no one listened. He knew the tossing waters would cause the sharp shells to sever the rope, and he was right. The boom floated away, and Magnolia Springs was left defenseless once more.

Instead of being discouraged, he redoubled his efforts, and by mid-May, the town’s plans had been approved, along with a $200,000 grant to keep the barges manned 24/7 – a Coast Guard requirement – for three weeks. All that remained was the decision about when to put the plan into action.

Jumping through hoops

Last Wednesday, that moment came. Hinton called the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and told them the time had come to deploy the
barges.

“They acted as if they’d never heard about it,” he says. “We started jumping through hoops to get the plan approved again.”

Hinton and Mayor Charles Houser conferred. If the small-town fire chief blocked the bay without permission, he could be jailed or fined, but he was willing to take that chance.

In a way, the decision was an easy one. There is a timelessness to the marshes of Magnolia Springs, where ospreys glide across the water and cottonmouths slither through pitcher plant bogs. It is “the most beautiful place on earth,” Hinton says, and he wants his grandchildren to see it – just as it is now.

Friday afternoon, Hinton learned his plans had been approved once more, backed by another grant that should allow them to keep the barges in place for as long as three months if necessary.

“We’ve done all we can do,” he says.

The uncertainty leads to sleepless nights for both Hinton and Mayor Houser, who says he’s confident about their course of action but still feels a queasy tension. He’s frustrated by BP’s overall plan for the Gulf Coast, calling it confusing and disjointed, with no clear chain of command.

“I’ve been in meetings with BP and they seem like they live in a vacuum,” he said Friday as he stared out at the water. “They just don’t get it. How can you replace this? It’s our little slice of heaven.”

If there was one thing I didn’t have that day, it was time. No time for things to go right, definitely no time for things to go wrong. But things were going to go wrong. Things were going to come to an absolute grinding halt.

As a journalist, I spend a lot of time on the road, and here I was again, two hours from the pasture where I was to photograph a wedding.

Sitting in a one-light town, watching a graffiti-laden freight train wearily shuffle by, I fumed. With more than 200 miles left to cover, I could pull it off — if this damned train would make like an Amtrak train and “git on gone” as people here like to say.

Finally. I threw a fine spray of gravel as I kicked the car into gear and headed north. And then it happened. Cresting a hill at 80 mph, I felt an odd sensation — something like a giant rubber band pulling my ‘99 Taurus backward. For a terrifying moment, I could see myself sliding down the hill into the kudzu-blanketed ravine, but somehow, I managed to coast into a parking lot.

Not knowing the first thing about cars, I did the logical thing — I popped the hood and peered into its greasy depths. The scalding heat radiating from the engine, coupled with an intense burning odor of Obscure Part You Can’t Afford, told me something important: I was screwed.

It wasn’t enough that I was skirting eviction daily. Or that my refrigerator and computer had died last week. Or that relationship stress was pushing me to the end of my tether. It wasn’t enough to be living constantly on edge, never having enough food, enough money, enough time — God, the time. I was going to be late for the wedding. My career, along with my car, was going up in smoke.

Three days later, I was certain that life was on a downward slide. The car remained abandoned in a no-name town on the way to nowhere. I couldn’t scrape up the cash to make a call, let alone afford the $300 that towing companies were asking for to bring it home. Without wheels, I couldn’t work, and without work, I couldn’t do anything. I felt helpless.

I called my friends; I called my family; I called on God. And then I posted a message on an Internet forum. I’d written there sporadically, but not often.

Every time I’d dropped in, it was like Thanksgiving with inlaws — a sprawling dysfunctional mess that left me in the bathroom heaving. I’d made a few friends and defended a few people, but for the most part, I stayed out of the fray.

sisson01.jpeg But desperate times called for desperate measures, and I was desperate. I needed the name of a good mechanic I could trust in a town where I knew no one.

Within the hour, I’d received an answer, but not the one I expected: “What’s the address? Someone’s on their way to get your car and tow it back to Tuscaloosa.”

“I don’t have money for that,” I typed back. “I need to get it fixed there.”

“Taken care of. Call Mr. Transmission, and give him the address.”

Before I could respond, the stranger wrote again: “Don’t waste time thanking me. No thanks required. Call.”

It was a holiday, and I doubted that the shop would be open, but I dialed the number anyway. The owner was waiting. He said he had a friend who ran a towing company — there’d be no charge. As for the car, we’d see what it needed, once it was back on home turf.

The stranger wrote that evening to make sure that the car arrived safely, and then there was no further contact. With not even a dollar in my checking account, I applied for a loan and was rejected. I didn’t know how I was going to pay for the repairs.

The next day, the mechanic called, and my heart sank. He had completed the repairs without even calling in an estimate. The bill totaled $2,700. I started to cry, great hiccupping tears of shame and frustration. What a loser I was. Now I owed this man more money than I made in three months.

“Your car is paid for,” he said. “Your friend paid the bill.”

When he learned the whole story – how a person I’d never met answered a prayer I’d never asked – the mechanic was moved. Checking under the hood, he found a few other problems, minor issues that weren’t handled by his shop.

Suddenly, a very strange story became more odd. He sent me to the Ford dealership, telling me to go to the back door and ask for Devin. There, Devin handed me a bag of parts and told me to go to an auto service center a few miles down the road and ask for Terry. By this time, I wasn’t even asking questions; I was just following blind faith.

Three months have passed, and my car runs like a charm. I’ve driven from Alabama to Kansas and back. Next week, I’ll drive to Texas. Next month, I’ll drive to Tennessee.

Sometimes, when every red light and freight train conspires against me, I close my eyes and think of the people who helped. They didn’t have to stop what they were doing that day. They didn’t have to contribute money or hands or time. But they did. And by doing so, they not only repaired my car, they repaired my heart.

PEARLINGTON, Miss. – Eighteen candles will adorn the birthday cake, but Glenn Locklin won’t be there to see his oldest daughter make a wish. Instead, he’ll be standing on a muddy patch of land 500 miles away, making dreams come true for another family, rebuilding hurricane-ravaged lives while putting his own life on hold. With great love comes great sacrifice – one he’s made without question. His wife and daughters make their own sacrifice. And so it goes for families all over the country, separated not by Katrina’s wrath, but by the compassion that grew in her wake.

Mr. Locklin, a burly, soft-spoken contractor from Tennessee and project manager for the charity organization One House at a Time, has been in Pearlington, Miss., since January 2006, leaving his wife, three teenage girls, and a thriving business to fulfill what he says is his Christian duty: rebuilding homes in the rural town, population 1,684 before the storm, hovering around half that now. No tax base remains, just 200 square miles of blacktop snaking through wooded scrubland bejeweled with Spanish moss. Many residents are elderly. Nearly a third are disabled. Strong hands like Locklin’s have been vital to recovery. He works seven days a week, 10 hours a day. Every two months, he goes home for a visit. No matter how hard it gets, he returns.

He’s not alone. State officials estimate as many as 500,000 people have come to provide hands-on assistance since Katrina. The federal government has provided relief money – some $26 billion to Mississippi alone – but it’s the hearts and hands of everyday people that are putting storm-torn lives back together.

Kris Locklin, Glenn’s wife, says the family is committed to the cause, even more so after spending Thanksgiving here and seeing the devastation – and progress – firsthand. Still, it’s hard. Discipline and grade problems have surfaced at home. Their middle daughter is transitioning from home schooling to her freshman year in public high school. Their 12-year-old is struggling emotionally. As for Mrs. Locklin, she’s given up a lot of things she used to enjoy because there’s not enough time. Always fiercely independent, she’s become more so, learning to repair the lawn mower and toilet. The family goes on, which is both reassuring and painful.

“He comes home and feels like he doesn’t belong here because we’ve developed our own system without him,” she says. “He goes back down there and feels like he doesn’t belong because he doesn’t. I listen to him cry on the phone, and I can’t comfort him. Those are the hardest times.”

And yet he says he has no choice but to be here. “When I got down here, it changed everything,” he says. “It got personal. I know these families. I know the circumstances. I know the pain. The main goal is to get them back in their homes.”

So far, his group – a charity run by the Hope Center Fellowship church in Hendersonville, Tenn. – has completed 16 houses. They are humble, 1,200-square-foot cottages that can be constructed from the ground up in less than a month. It takes about 60 volunteers and $30,000 to complete one house. At the moment, Locklin has the hands but lacks the funds. He trades and borrows materials from other volunteer groups – some 45 relief organizations in a local coalition that share resources and information. While Locklin waits for donations to trickle in, he renovates houses that were damaged and finishes projects on houses they’ve already built.

The experience has changed him. “I used to always want – go to Wal-Mart and buy stupid things,” he says. “It’s taught me how to live better, but it’s also very satisfying to help people.”

***

It’s the middle of nowhere and the hour is nothing, a sliver of time dutifully noted by the alarm clock’s efficient blue glow. It’s surprisingly cold here in Pearlington, and the volunteers burrow more deeply into their bunks, grateful for the woolen blankets that stave off the chill. In the darkness, shadows rise and fall, punctuated by soft groans as worn bedsprings do what they can to help tired shoulders. This isn’t the Four Seasons, but as far as volunteer camps go, this wooden bunkhouse is luxury accommodations, a home away from home.

The scrape of clay-caked Timberlands on the bunkhouse floor announces the latest arrivals – a father-son team from Dansville, N.Y., here to spend a week building houses with Locklin’s group. Next week, fresh volunteers will arrive, some armed with little more than goodwill.

The relief groups have made a difference. Jim Nelson, Mississippi’s assistant secretary of state for business regulation and enforcement, says in many cases nonprofits have trumped bureaucracy in speed and efficiency. “In the early days after the hurricane, the federal government was disorganized,” says Mr. Nelson, whose office oversees every charity registered in the state – including 94 different Katrina groups. “The charitable groups were able to get into the coast more quickly and hit the ground running.”

Partly it’s a matter of roles. The federal government provided long-range funding as the state government focused on economic redevelopment, but nonprofits excelled in providing immediate needs such as food, water, clothing, and shelter. While trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency sat idle, regulations preventing their use until lots were cleared and utilities restored, volunteers stood beneath a sweltering Mississippi sun, cutting swaths through fetid underbrush and swarms of mosquitoes to get the job done.

“Charities and the work they have done and continue to do … are so significant that it’s difficult to find words or measurement,” says Bryan McDonald, head of the governor’s Office of Recovery and Renewal.

***

Dawn comes early, a haze of hot coffee tempering the shock of frigid outdoor toilets. One by one, the volunteers gather around a campfire to pray and discuss the day ahead. Three projects are under way: an addition to provide an elderly couple with more living space, electrical work on a nearly completed house, and joining two houses together for a seven-generation family. In addition, Locklin is working on a personal project: renovating Tim and Jackie Blackwell’s four-bedroom brick home.

Mr. Blackwell, an ROTC teacher at the local high school, admits he was hesitant to accept Locklin’s help. Insurance paid off his mortgage but left him with studs and a concrete slab. Still, he felt more fortunate than his neighbors. He was at least physically able to rebuild. Silently, he trudged to his classroom each day, working on his house in the evenings. One thing became apparent: He was in over his head. “I liked to piddle in the workshop, but I’d never done anything of this magnitude,” Blackwell says. “When I looked at it, I knew it wasn’t right, but I didn’t know how to fix it. Glenn pretty much took the hammer away and said, ‘You’re dangerous with this.’ ”

He laughs, but becomes serious when he remembers the days of being alone, struggling with thoughts of suicide. He believes the volunteers have done more than just build houses – they’ve saved lives. Alan Rudisill, a maintenance manager from North Carolina, echoes other volunteers when he says it’s a simple matter of doing the right thing. “This community needs help, and the Lord has blessed me to come be a part of it,” he says. “I wish I could do more.”

Here, as it is all along the Gulf Coast these days, progress is distilled into tangibles and intangibles: A board that fits. A roof that’s finished. A word that comforts. A hand that helps.

At the end of the day, as the sun sinks low in the Southern sky, it means everything.