By Karen Ocamb

(Editor's note: In the interest of full disclosure, we report that IN Los Angeles magazine was contacted to do a story on wheelchair-bound Jessica Hammond and her partner, Tamika Randazzle. But upon learning that the closeted couple was sheltered at the Messiah Missionary Baptist Church in Lake Charles, La., IN decided the first priority was to help extricate them from their situation. IN paid for their tickets to Los Angeles and set up a relief fund with St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Hollywood.)

Like most other Americans, Mark Miller, an openly gay Los Angeles area screenwriter and children's book author, was shocked by the human tragedy after Hurricane Katrina hit Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. His heart went out to the stranded victims, especially those in New Orleans, his home just three years earlier. But he had no idea that Katrina would irrevocably change his own life so many miles away.

Before coming to Los Angeles to pursue his writing career, Miller had given part-time work in a New Orleans hotel he managed to a young African American youth named Jamie and some of his extended family. They stayed in touch, haphazardly, after Miller's move. Then, out of the blue, five days after Katrina hit, Miller received a call from Jamie, marooned at a New Orleans airport with his extended family and begging for help.

"We really feel this was divine intervention," Miller told IN.

When the announcement came about the hurricane, Jamie, 17, and his openly gay cousin, Kenny Marcelin, 21, and Marcelin's large family sought refuge in a hotel. About two or three in the morning the winds got too heavy, the air conditioner was pushed in, and the family moved to the hallway where they waited until morning, Marcelin told IN. The next day, with the water rising, Marcelin and Jamie decided they needed to go get food and water.

"We couldn't swim in the water because it was so messy," Marcelin recalled. But they nonetheless waded out to a nearby grocery store where they broke in and filled four large buckets with food, water, batteries, and baby formula. As they sought help to get the buckets to their family and others stuck at the hotel, the buckets were stolen. "We were trying to help everyone and they were stealing from us," Marcelin said.

"The next day the boats came and brought us to a bridge (Interstate-10) but it was so hot, we couldn't stay. So me and Jamie put an ice box door in the water and we brought our brothers and sisters (ages 6-11) back to the hotel. Then we went back from my mom and stuff," he said. Marcelin and another brother tried to go home, but with "people in the water, and feces backing up and water up to our neck," they decided to go back to the hotel. They got everyone up to the roof where they tried to use a flare gun to attract the attention of a helicopter -- but to no effect. On day four they were finally rescued and taken to the New Orleans airport.

"It was a mess," Marcelin said. They were told to wait in line for evacuation to another airport, but just as they reached the front, the airlift ended and they were told to get back in line the next day. They slept on the floor, in line. But when the airlift resumed, the officials started at the back of the line in the pouring rain, surrounded by armed guards. "They treated us like we were murderers," he recalled.

What Miller considers "divine intervention" occurred on that line when Jamie found a scrap of paper in his pocket with Miller's phone number. Someone else in line had a working cell phone.

"Jamie found a scrap of paper and a cell phone that worked and he called and said, 'Help me' -- and that's all it took," says Miller. "He and Kenny stayed up all night watching over the kids and his aunt [Kenny's mother] because they said people were getting robbed and raped at the airport."

Miller hit the Internet and through the kindness of strangers, found airline vouchers out of San Antonio, Texas, where they had been re-located, transportation, housing and even job opportunities for Jamie, Kenny, and the rest of the family of seven. The family is now safely harbored by Susan and Gene Knight in their 30-acre ranch in Pinon Hills near Victorville. Miller even found a sponsor to pay for a $10,000 scholarship to send Marcelin to a junior college so he can learn how to be a hairdresser.

But while Marcelin's drama unfolded, he worried about his best friend Jessica Hammond and her lesbian partner, Tamika Randazzle. The 25-year-old girls had piled into a car with Randazzle's grandparents and fled their East New Orleans home when the mayor first issued the evacuation order Sunday, the day before Katrina hit. But Jessica, who was disabled by a spinal chord accident at age three months, was in pain from the uncomfortable car ride and, running out of money, they decided to stop at the Messiah Missionary Baptist Church in Lake Charles. Rev. Owen took them in, secured the grandparents a home, and tried to help the two. He assumed Randazzle was Hammond's nurse.

In the South, Hammond told IN, "they tell you God doesn't approve of that," being gay. The first night they were separated in a room full of 30 other Katrina victims; it was the first time they were apart in five years. "I couldn't sleep. I'm used to her sleeping next to me, helping me roll over. And I'm not ashamed of being disabled but I was embarrassed about changing (into donated clothes) in a room full of people." Luckily the pastor cleared out a small classroom, paid for an air mattress out of his own pocket so Hammond wouldn't have to sleep on the floor, and gave them some privacy.

"I would get depressed about being in a wheelchair and I didn't know where my family was and we lost everything -- all our memories were in that house. But Tamika just kept saying it would be alright. We waited for the sun to come up so she could push me outside and we could act normal," Hammond said.

Another miracle occurred: Hammond's cell phone worked. When Marcelin called trying to find her, he relayed the story of how he was rescued by Miller. "Kenny, tell him to save me," she said.

Miller went to work. Disappointed by the lack of response from gay Christian churches, he was relieved to finally find a Long Beach lesbian couple, Margaret LaRue and Elke Riedlong, willing to take them in. But he didn't have enough money for the plane trip.

Fate once again intervened. Laleh Soomekh, a photographer friend of this reporter's, spotted Miller's notice on the Web. Though she no longer had my contact information, her fingers remembered my phone number and she called me to write a story about the couple, hoping the publicity would help raise money for them to start a new life. Concerned that they needed immediate help, I contacted IN Publishers Mark Hundahl and David Stern, who agreed to pay for the tickets to bring them from Lake Charles to LAX.

The second task was to set up a fund for them since Hammond has been disabled from infancy and Randazzle had been paid to be her health-care worker. Now, neither of them had any money, resources, or contacts to help with Hammond's special needs.

Interestingly, St Thomas had already jumped in to help the victims of Katrina, having raised $15,000 to help a church in Biloxi, Miss., where Associate Rector Mark Stuart had once given sermons. On Monday, Sept, 12, Rev. Stuart and Rev. Ian Elliot Davies agreed to set up the Jessica Fund to which a few parishioners contributed funds immediately. The next day, when Hammond and Randazzle arrived at LAX, met by Miller, their lesbian couple housing hosts, Jamie, Marcelin, Soomekh and this reporter -- most of us strangers to each other -- the couple was presented with $400 in cash and beamed with gratitude.

Asked how he felt about rescuing so many people, Miller said, "I feel exhausted. But I feel so wonderful. I really feel this changes your scope about what life is all about. If I had to sell my car -- I had to do whatever it took to help them because at least I have a home, a job, clothing -- so if I couldn't give that up for people who had nothing -- what kind of a person am I?"

Though LaRue and Riedlong built Hammond a ramp for her wheelchair, Hammond is essentially a quadriplegic and needs someone to push her around. Randazzle had been paid by the state to be Hammond's health-care worker -- but neither knows how to maneuver the new layers of local, state, and federal bureaucracy to make the system work for them again, especially with Randazzle as the "breadwinner" for the couple. ... Before the hurricane, Hammond was waiting for an electric wheelchair so she could get out, learn to drive, and study to become a recreational therapist. ... "When I was in the hospital from age three months to 5 years old, the recreational therapists always tried to lift my spirits and make me feel better. I want to do the same thing for the children," Hammond told IN. "The hurricane felt like the end of the world to me. Our house is under water. We've lost everything we own, including our first picture at a gay ball -- we've been engaged for five years. We don't have those memories anymore, but Margaret and Elke are real down to earth people and we really appreciate them taking us in. Thank God there are loving people."