News Release

When Auxiliarist Bruce Dyleski, the Flotilla Commander of Flotilla 33, located in Waveland, Mississippi, and his wife Joy returned to their home in Waveland on Wednesday, September 7, they found little that resembled their former life. Their cozy home and the neighborhood around it were flattened by Hurricane Katrina. As Bruce put it, “The sea came in and washed Waveland away.”

As Bruce surveyed the rubble before him, memories of his time in Waveland came in waves of a different kind. Memories and a perspective on life forever changed.

Surveying the rubble, Bruce and Joy make a find. “The first thing I found of ours was a large decorative plate. It had been atop a cabinet above our stove leaning against the wall How it landed safely in the front yard I cannot know. The roof of the house was across the street probably blown off before the wave ever got there. But the plate how it did made it?”

Little things mean a lot when you have lost virtually everything.

In the aftermath of Katrina, the Coast Guard Auxiliary launched Operation Life Ring, and for people like Bruce and Joy, the Life Ring got thrown at just the right time. Commodore Joe Taylor was tasked with the coordination of Life Ring Efforts in the ravaged area, and with the assistance of Coast Guard Mutual Assistance staff, met with Auxiliarists at Coast Guard stations in Diamondhead, MS, Pascagoula, MS and Gulfport, LA.

Bruce and Joy and, as of 2 October, approximately two dozen other Auxiliary families like them were given no-interest Coast Guard Mutual Assistance loans of up to $5,000.00 per family. No payment at all is expected for six months.

According to COMO Taylor, this was the first time this many Auxiliarists have needed mutual assistance.

While some had other insurance (and others had none), there was a real need for immediate funds that other insurance was not providing. Said Taylor, “Many have insurance, but that takes time.” The loans, Taylor said, would give them “capital to operate on in the interim.”

Loans were given right on the spot, and Dyleski was amazed at the speed of the loan (five minutes!) and the lack of “red tape.”

In the typical unselfish spirit of the Auxiliary, more than one Auxiliarist told Commodore Taylor they would not take a Mutual Assistance loan if it deprived another of a loan. These loans will not meet all needs, according to Commodore Taylor. Some families are so devastated they will need pure grants, where no repayment is expected.

Here, Taylor says, is where the donations to Operation Life Ring will come in. As the Auxiliary Association receives donations to Operation Life Ring, a fund will be built up from which individual need-based grants can be made.

This will be particularly needed by members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary Eighth District, Coastal Region Flotilla’s 48, 35, 41 and 33, which Taylor says were “hammered” by the storm.

The need for these donations is real and immediate, said the Commodore.

For Bruce and Joy Dyleski and countless others like them, the process of rebuilding their lives has begun.

Moving ahead for others may be more difficult, but there will be the common thread of a caring Auxiliary family.

Through Operation Life Ring, all of us can be an active part of that caring family.

For more information about Operation Life Ring, click on our website: http://www.operationlifering.org

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