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Saving
New Orleans' Mules
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This season’s hurricanes have wiped out countless businesses…including the small community of carriage drivers who serviced the tourist trade in New Orleans. While those drivers’ homes are destroyed, their partners have made it to higher ground. As Reed Galin reports, a hurricane hero has stepped in to help out. |
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SCRIPT:
(Locator: Gallatin, Tenn.)
Dick Reese/Rancher: “This is something I can do it, I know how to do it - it’s just outreach.”
When Dick Reese found out his church, First United Methodist of Gallatin, Tennessee would be helping hurricane survivors, he was all for it. But the evacuees he’s sheltering are of the half-ton, four-legged variety.
Dick Reese/Rancher: “Hungry aren’t you, fella?”
Reese’s family has been in the mule business for three generations. So, when the New Orleans levees broke, he knew carriage mules used in the tourist trade were in danger.
Amanda Reese/Rancher’s Wife: “Without saying anything to me, he started calling because he was so concerned about that.”
Dick Reese/Rancher: “The first lady I talked to, she thought she’d lost all of her mules and she was just was devastated.”
Turns out the mules had been taken to higher ground. Dick sent trucks and brought more than 30 animals to his farm. They’ll stay as long as it takes for New Orleans to come back.
Dick Reese/ Rancher “There are probably I’ll say 120 mules that work on the streets in New Orleans - and that’d be 120 families with no income – that’s really what hit me as hard as anything.”
Some of the carriage drivers have already contacted Reese wanting to come visit their mules. Reese says it’s a testament to the animals’ appeal.
Dick Reese/ Rancher: “They just have personalities to them, like this one here that wants to have his picture taken. People get attached to them.”
(Mules gather around truck ) “Leave my truck alone! …Go away, git!”
Amanda Reese/ Rancher’s Wife: “I’m just thankful that they are healthy and that they’ll be able to go back to what they were doing and that my husband was a very big part of that.”
TAG:
It will probably be next spring before most of the mules will head home.
The Reeses are expecting 10 horses from New Orleans any day now. They will be put in the pasture with the mules until their owners can care for them again.
The Reeses say they have enough help for their efforts now, but if you would like to contribute to other hurricane relief programs, contact the United Methodist Committee On Relief at: www.MethodistRelief.org or call 1-800-554-8583.