Kevin Wong couldn’t wait any longer.

The junior long-distance runner had watched enough television coverage and heard plenty of speculation. He had to see it for himself.

Wong, the only athlete at Syracuse from New Orleans, made an impromptu trip down to his hometown in late October to see the condition of his family’s house after Hurricane Katrina. His parents, since relocated to his grandparents’ house in Connecticut, knew only from a neighbor there was damage to the roof.

Other than that, the Wongs had no clue on the condition of the house, located next to the Tulane campus, 4 miles from the Superdome, until Wong made the trip. He was the first one of the family to return home.

‘We didn’t know if it was underwater or blown off the face of the Earth,’ said Hope Rune, his mother.

A friend of his who attends Louisiana State picked Wong up from the airport and drove him around the area.

‘It was out of control,’ Wong said. ‘There were cars and trees everywhere. It was intense just seeing all of the water lines on houses.’

On the way to his neighborhood, Wong noticed the remains of some of his friends’ houses. All that was left was some rubble and the foundation.

‘It was eye-opening,’ Wong said. ‘I got to my house and there was a tarp on our roof. We left two cars, they were fine. My area was actually pretty good.’

The Wongs, who have since moved back to their house in New Orleans, needed a new roof, a replacement window and repairs to the air conditioning unit.

The water damage stopped six blocks from the Wongs’ house.

‘We got lucky,’ Wong said. ‘It was surreal.’

But Wong responded with his best academic semester and athletic season. All in the shadow of extreme adversity and uncertainty.

For two days after the hurricane hit, Wong was left in the dark.

No phone calls from his family or friends. He couldn’t even make any phone calls because cell phones in the Southeast were rendered useless due to the 175-mile-per-hour winds that destroyed the phone towers.

Ask the soft-spoken Wong about it today and he’s a little reluctant to recall it.

‘Those first two days were just depressing,’ Wong said. ‘Everybody knew what was happening, but I didn’t get any phone calls.’

Wong knew his family had left New Orleans. They evacuated the city on Aug. 28, the day before Katrina reached land, and called Wong to let him know they got out.

He passed the time sitting in front of his computer all day, with CNN’s coverage of the disaster on the television. Wong closely analyzed any pictures he could find on the Internet, but never found his house. He didn’t go to class.

‘I felt kind of numb,’ Wong said. ‘I was just so far away.’

Finally, after two agonizing days, Wong got word of his family’s safety. His mother phoned one of his friends to tell Wong they were situated in Grenada, Miss., 300 miles north of New Orleans.

Unbelievably, the hurricane passed right over Grenada in its later stages, just a little after the Wongs arrived in a shelter.

After spending a week in Mississippi, the Wongs made the long journey to Essex, Conn., in a quest for some semblance of stability. But in Connecticut, Wong’s father, Larry Wong, a lawyer and Rune, an obstetrician/gynecologist, were jobless. Wong’s younger brother, Jason, began his freshman year of high school in a place so unfamiliar.

As the only member of the family with a place he could call his own, Wong stayed in constant communication with his parents.

‘He was probably more upset because he wasn’t with us,’ Rune said. ‘Kevin’s a pretty sensitive guy.

‘The Syracuse community has been very helpful. All kinds of people have offered the support he needs.’

A week after Katrina destroyed New Orleans, Wong received an e-mail from the financial aid office at SU, saying it was urgent he show up. He rushed to the office the next day.

‘I showed up and this lady said, ‘I just paid your bookstore bill,” Wong said. ‘I said, ‘Excuse me? That was like $600.’ And she said, ‘Yeah, I just paid it.”

SU also agreed to subsidize some additional fees for the second semester, but it was the sense of community the people of SU offered that helped Wong the most.

‘I would walk around campus and people would come give me random hugs,’ Wong said. ‘It was a good feeling.’

Wong’s coach, Chris Fox, says other teammates tell him Wong knows more people than anyone on campus.

‘Kevin kept a real positive attitude about himself throughout the whole ordeal,’ Fox said. ‘Being on a team also gives him somewhere to find a sense of closeness.’

Healthy for the first time in his SU career, cross country also gave him something to do besides worry. He placed seventh in the 3,000-meter run at the Syracuse Invitational in February and 18th at the UB Open in October.

‘That was about the only thing going well in my life,’ Wong said. ‘I had a pretty good season. That helped out a huge amount. Especially just being able to run with the guys and travel with the team.’

The exercise and team factors were great stress reducers, Rune said.

‘It was real nice to be able to go for a run,’ Wong said. ‘None of the guys would really bring it up. They’d keep the mood light and make me laugh. It was great.’

Rune said the support from friends and administrators at SU ‘reassured my faith in people.’ It did not end with just Wong she said, but the parents of Wong’s friends at SU who are from the Connecticut area phoned her weekly to check up.

But soon enough, the phone calls were not enough to satisfy Wong, like the pictures failed before.

Wong borrowed a friend’s car and drove to Connecticut during an October weekend to see his family for the first time since it was uprooted. Thanksgiving was supposed to be the great reunion for the Wong family.

Wong had not spent Thanksgiving with his family since before he came to SU. Rune said it had been years since they spent the holiday at her parent’s house and Wong eagerly anticipated the week.

There was only one hitch.

Wong’s father could not spend Thanksgiving with his family. Instead, he was summoned back to New Orleans because the new roof was nearing installation on the family’s home.

The question remained: Was the current condition of the city well enough to support the family?

‘With everybody evacuating and some people leaving permanently, I wondered, will there be a large enough population to support us?’ Rune said.

Rune was not sure whether she could ever reopen her practice, let alone live the way they used to before the disaster. Even more pressing of an issue was whether looters had struck the neighborhood.

After Thanksgiving dinner, Larry Wong relayed the good news to Rune from New Orleans.

‘My husband said, ‘It’s gonna be OK, it’s gonna be OK,” she said. ‘Finally in December we decided to go back.’

Through all of the uncertainty, lack of communication and difficult decision-making, the Wongs made the final 1,400-mile trek back to their home at the beginning of Wong’s winter break.

What was thought only to be a miracle three months earlier became reality. Wong and his family celebrated Christmas in New Orleans.

‘We were very relieved,’ Rune said. ‘As much as you learn to deal without your stuff, a house is a house. It was all there.’

Wong’s brother restarted high school in New Orleans after the new year. The school, like most in the area, was shut down for the first semester.

Rune re-opened her practice shortly after Christmas. Despite being understaffed and returning to fewer patients, so far things have gone surprisingly well.

‘It’s such a great opportunity for this city to rebuild,’ Rune said. ‘The recovery is going a bit more slowly than everyone hoped, but it will creep back.’

The fall was Wong’s best academic semester in his three years at Syracuse. What are the odds?

But in a few weeks, he will leave his teammates and friends at SU for his familiar New Orleans neighborhood, where he will meet up with some displaced friends he has not yet seen.

This summer, Wong, a biology major, will work at a children’s hospital near his house, the only hospital not damaged by the hurricane. He will also coach swimming, as he does every summer, but this year it will be a little different. The kids he coaches normally use the University of New Orleans’ pool, but it was badly damaged and is still not repaired.

Wong says he’s looking forward most to returning to the atmosphere of New Orleans, even if it may be subdued. Plus, he’s ready for the sunshine.

‘I’m still not a fan of the cold weather up here,’ he said. ‘I prefer the heat of the South.’

Wong said everything is beginning to revert to normal back home. His neighborhood is almost completely moved back in and the close-knit community is even closer than before.

‘I was going on runs down there and you see whole families cleaning up the medians and sidewalks,’ Wong said. ‘Everyone is helping out. It’s incredible to see.’

And to think if his family lived six blocks closer, it would have been rubble instead of Christmas.

Published on April 18, 2006 at 12:00 pm