— Juanita Joseph recalled her fear when her bus pulled into Camp Gruber’s Sicily Gate in the dark of night five years ago.

“It looked scary,” she said. “But once we got in, the people were warm and we felt so welcome. We had never, never felt that way in New Orleans.”

Joseph, her fiancé and three daughters, were among hundreds of New Orleans evacuees who arrived in 39 buses to Camp Gruber’s Sicily Gate shortly before 10 p.m. Sept. 3, 2005. The buses carried a total of 1,434 men, women and children, plus 17 pets.

The next day, a church day, Muskogee people sought ways to help. Wren Stratton, a city council member who helped coordinate the assistance, told the Muskogee Phoenix two men who couldn’t speak English handed out cans of chili.

Stratton said she continues to be amazed at the community’s response.

“Muskogee was amazing on two fronts, “ she said.

The first front came when news first broke about the hurricane Aug. 29.  Businesses such as Terry Miller Pontiac Buick GMC and Aaron’s Sells filled trucks to take to the storm-ravaged area.

The second front was Muskogee’s dramatic response to those who arrived at Gruber later that week.

“We were taking curbside donations at the Civic Center,” Stratton said. “People so desperate to help pulled up to the curb with tears in their eyes and handed me stuff, saying ‘I wish it could be more.’”

Even more volunteers from across the Muskogee and Tulsa area spent Labor Day helping the evacuees. Some volunteers came on their own. Grant Foreman Elementary School secretary Karen Felts recalled going with her mother and two kids to help.

“I just remember the looks on their faces. They seemed so lost,” Felts said, recalling the people she saw at Gruber. “They’d be so happy when anyone would help them. We had one room all the way to the ceiling with clothing. We handed out baskets of clothing, tried to get people’s sizes.”

They established relationships with some, she said.

“We went back there several times, took people shopping.”

Stratton recalled seeing “a little man who pushed a wheelchair that had a dog on it.”

“His head was chafed and cut because he carried that dog on his head through the flood waters,” she said.

Joseph recalled how her New Orleans house was damaged.

“I remember waking up that morning and the water coming up into our house,” she said. “I remember the front steps coming loose from the front door and floating in the yard. One of my husband’s friends floated by in a boat and everyone got on my husband’s back to get in the boat. We were in the New Orleans Superdome for three days.”

Joseph recalled feeling blessed even at the Superdome or on the long bus ride to Oklahoma.

“Even though we were in a disaster, it was not a disaster for us,” she said. “We were just blessed that nobody got harmed and nobody got sick.”

Stratton said the first week refugees were at Gruber, she and other volunteers worked “pretty much nonstop.”

Lt. Col. Billy Robison was Camp Gruber’s base engineer in September 2005. He recalled the first three days after the buses’ arrival as “total chaos.”

“We weren’t really geared up to take it,” said Robison, who now is Gruber’s base manager.

The base also had scramble to set up an adequate power system, he said. “And we were not prepared for the individuals who had brought animals with them — dogs and cats.”

Another issue was the tremendous outpouring of help, he said.

“The response from everyone was great — churches, the Red Cross,” he said. However, the question remained of how to best serve the evacuees and how to channel such help, he said. “It became confusing with the number of churches donating stuff. We wanted to identify who would be the lead element for the donations coming in.”

The Red Cross took on that responsibility, he said.

Ryan Hardaway, current director of the Muskogee Red Cross, said the area Red Cross helped a total of 2,500 evacuees, including many who came to Gruber. Others came on their own to other shelters at Tulsa churches, he said.

Over the next month, 2,370 Red Cross volunteers helped with the evacuees, he said.

“Most were spontaneous volunteers who signed on because of Katrina.”

Eventually, evacuees faced other needs.

Robison said optometry students from Northeastern State University did eye exams at the base. Nearly 65 grade school and middle school students went to Muskogee schools, and 15 went to Tahlequah High School.

As the month progressed, evacuees moved out, some back home, some to new homes. The Muskogee Ministerial Alliance worked with several agencies to find rental units. An evacuee who found a place to live was paired with a church to help get furniture, transportation and integrated into the community.

Joseph said her family worked with St. Joseph Catholic Church, then was paired with a woman named Darla, who helped sponsor her and find a home.

“She got us an apartment at Raintree Apartments,” Joseph recalled.  “She and her family were awesome. They had that house fully furnished when we got there.”

By Oct. 9, 2005, the number of displaced New Orleans residents at Gruber had dwindled to 13. They were bused to temporary homes in Tulsa or Muskogee.

Joseph said her family celebrated two Christmases at Raintree and two Christmases at a new home on Geneva Street. Fire destroyed that house shortly before the family could celebrate a third Christmas there in 2009. Muskogee schools provided gifts for Christmas, she said.

Joseph and her husband held various jobs since their stay at Gruber. Joseph said she does some housekeeping. She said her husband, Edgar Joseph, 51, returned to New Orleans five months ago to do construction and now is working on clearing BP’s gulf oil spill.

She said she does some housekeeping and other odd jobs and volunteers at the Ark of Faith. Two younger daughters, Tay-La Jackson, 13, and Lilli Joseph, 10, enjoy school at Ben Franklin Science Academy. The oldest daughter, Venetia Vincent, 25, works at INCOR.

Juanita Joseph said she’ll always remember her time at Camp Gruber.

“These were people like we had never experienced before,” she said. “When we got here, we were strangers. But we were like family to them. If you wanted to sit down and talk, they’d sit and talk with you. It’s something they have here you don’t find everywhere.”

Reach Cathy Spaulding at 684-2928 or cspaulding@muskogeephoenix.com.