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For Student, New Beginning Is Bittersweet

Now attending USF, Mauricio Sierra is thankful for the fresh start but laments the loss of his comfortable life in New Orleans.

CRYSTAL L. LAUDERDALE / Tribune

By LINDSAY PETERSON lpeterson@tampatrib.com

Published: Dec 12, 2005

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is part of an occasional series following four families uprooted by Hurricane Katrina who are trying to build new lives in the Tampa Bay area.

TAMPA - Mauricio Sierra stepped across the mud-caked floor of what used to be his bedroom, his furniture scattered, the stench as loud as a scream. He could tell the water had soaked the clothes in his closet, but then he saw the tie, hanging neatly, alone on a hanger.

Later that day, he pulled it out of his pocket to show his mother what he had salvaged. Only then, in the brighter light, did he see the mold that blotched the dark green fabric. His mother looked disgusted. "Get rid of that thing," she said.

Sierra, 21, was one of about 100 students who came to the University of South Florida after Hurricane Katrina closed their colleges along the Gulf Coast. He had been eager to go home to New Orleans for Thanksgiving to see what was left of his flooded Lakeview neighborhood.

Mostly he wanted to find out whether he could go home for good at the end of the semester.

It was clear he can't, not if he wants to finish college on time. He feels lost in Tampa. Going back probably would mean quitting school, though, and a part of him knows that would be a mistake.

Another part isn't so sure. It's the part that can't forget the comfort and familiarity of his hometown, and it longs to be back there.

Before he left Tampa for his visit to New Orleans last month, he knew the scene would be ugly. But he had no inkling how ugly, how ruined his world would be.

"Everything you are prepared to understand about this storm, everything you've heard or seen on TV cannot prepare you for the absolute horror of it," he said, back at school after the holiday, bleary-eyed from a couple of long nights finishing a paper for an international law class.

"The gravity of it was so much worse, so much more intense."

He stood on the corner near his house across from the 17th Street Canal and remembered the sight of his tree-lined street on a sunny day, he said. He had lived there since January, after moving out of his mother's house in Kenner.

"I thought about all the old neighbors and wondered where they were," especially an older man he visited for an occasional chess game.

The place was abandoned and nothing was green, he said. The grass had turned a putrid yellow. Everything was covered with a yellowish-brown film - the lawns, streets and sidewalks, the fallen trees and left-behind cars.

"It looked like a barren wasteland," Sierra said.

After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, Sierra and several family members spent a week trapped downtown in an office building. Eventually they came to Tampa, where they have relatives.

Approaching his senior year at the University of New Orleans, majoring in political science, Sierra started at USF without a hitch. "I just thank God I can be here and at school. USF has been great," Sierra said about a month after he arrived. Advisers helped him get into the classes he needed. He was charged in-state tuition and given free books.

After almost four months in Tampa, though, he still feels like a stranger. The people are pleasant. "But you have all these gigantic roads. Everything is so far apart. It takes forever to get anywhere. It's really patchy."

He sees no connections, no landmarks, no center. It's so different from Sierra's New Orleans, with its narrow streets, old shady neighborhoods and rich and ribald history.

It's the city that took in Sierra's father from Colombia and his mother from Honduras and gave them both good lives. It's where Sierra was born and collected friends from elementary school through college, friends he could call anytime for a favor or an invitation to come over and just hang around.

"I love the city. But it's not so much the stuff I miss," he said. "It's the familiarity and that comfortable feeling. It's all my friends.

"These are people who have known me since I was little. ... Some of them are like my brothers."

They're scattered now. Some friends are still in New Orleans and struggling to rebuild, hassling with contractors, insurance companies and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"I drove around and I didn't see much progress," Sierra said.

Their troubles only bolstered Sierra's desire to be there permanently.

"I want to put myself into the city," he said. "I want to put my blood into it. I want to see how it progresses and be a part of it."

He returned to Tampa, a little sadder, and began making plans for another semester at USF. He'll get by on student loans. The university again is waiving out-of-state tuition costs.

He keeps telling himself that even if he didn't care about school, he couldn't move back. There's no place to live; one friend lost his apartment when the landlord quadrupled the rent. The mold would make his allergies unbearable.

So he has put his remorse on hold and focused on final reports and exams, which are this week.

His girlfriend moved to Tampa a few weeks ago, which eased the loneliness. And his aunts and uncles here will help get him through Christmas.

But when he's not thinking about school, Sierra said, his hometown pops back into his head. He thinks about his friends and his dad, who is trying to rebuild his house near downtown New Orleans, and his mother and 11-year-old sister in Kenner, which wasn't severely damaged.

Sometimes he just parks his car and sits alone, scrolling through the list of numbers in his cell phone and calling people. "Anything to keep me close and linked to New Orleans," he said.

"I don't want to lose touch. I don't want to lose my ties to home."