Hilton Kelley was helping evacuees from Hurricane Katrina find clothing, shelter, and food, as Hurricane Rita bore down upon his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas. Mr. Kelley is the founder of CIDA, Community In-Power and Development Association, a group that is working to improve the economic and environmental conditions in Port Arthur. After closing up his house and CIDA’s new community center, Mr. Kelley gathered his family and friends, ages 9 months to 84 years old, and led a nine-car caravan out of Port Arthur, headed north.
That was on September 22, 2005. Mr. Kelley’s journey to escape Rita would keep him away from Port Arthur for nearly a month. His travel was difficult. Leaving town was slow; in the massive exodus of people in cars, it took him 16 hours to get 80 miles away. He intended to reach Oklahoma, but landed in St. Augustine, Texas, due to shortages at gas stations. Mr. Kelley spent the night in his car when Rita made landfall, with the wind 
rocking the car violently and howling around him. After the hurricane hit St. Augustine, the high school gym, which served as a shelter for others in Mr. Kelley’s group, was left without plumbing or electricity, so Mr. Kelley decided to head to Alexandria, Louisiana. With the help of kind strangers, they were invited to spend time at a Christian worship center that had taken in some hurricane victims. They stayed there for two nights before heading to Dallas, where Mr. Kelley’s wife had family willing to help.
First Views After the Hurricane
With the aid of a reporter, who was shooting a documentary film about CIDA and wanted to see the damage inflicted on Port Arthur, Kelley was able to get back into town before it was widely open to the public. Although Port Arthur was just five miles from the eye of the storm, Kelley’s house was spared, though many others in the area were destroyed. Hurricane Rita lashed CIDA’s recently renovated community center, which will house daycare facilities, after-school care, and community meeting space. Winds tore away the roof, mold covers the walls, and office equipment is ruined.
Others faced with this situation have decided to leave town for good, rather than come back to face rebuilding homes and businesses. But Hilton Kelley’s decision to return and rebuild was never in doubt.
Returning Home to Port Arthur
Hilton Kelley’s first comeback to his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, happened in 2000, after more than two decade in Northern California working as a stuntman in Hollywood films. When he returned for a visit, he was shocked at the state of his town. Port Arthur, located in southeastern Texas, is in the heart of “Gasoline Alley,” where four international oil refineries operate. Those facilities –across neighborhood streets, next to homes and schools -- are the reason that Port Arthur has some of the dirtiest air in the nation. Mr. Kelley quickly realized that to improve the lives of the people in Port Arthur, something would have to be done to improve the quality of the environment.
Mr. Kelley said, “I just felt that I had to do something to improve the lives of the children in the community, and to encourage young people to pursue their dreams. I got to follow my dreams and now it’s time for others to get that chance.”
That’s when he was inspired to start CIDA, with the idea that he could make the refineries better neighbors so the environment would improve, and thereby make the city more enticing to other industries and businesses. Port Arthur is a depressed area: unemployment is at 13.5% with no jobs moving into the area. Buildings are crumbling, and local government is moving resources away from Port Arthur to improve other parts of the county. Yet Port Arthur is plagued with the problems associated with having oil refineries in close proximity to communities.
Pollution From Neighboring Refineries
“I remember that when I was a child, there was a bad smell in the town, but no one knew that the chemicals causing that smell were dangerous,” said Mr. Kelley. “Now we know.”
CIDA became active in the Refinery Reform Campaign’s Bucket Brigade program, which provides communities with a simple tool used to measure the emissions of toxics into the air near oil refineries. With sampling data in hand, community leaders like Hilton Kelley can better advocate for pollution reduction, safety improvements, and increased enforcement of environmental laws.
CIDA is working to get the refineries to reduce their emissions into the community, and is pursuing a corporate campaign to get the top management to change their policies toward fenceline communities. Mr. Kelley is trying to break the impasse of local managers pointing to the main headquarters for answers to the community’s demand, while headquarters tells the community to deal with local managers.
“We want these national and international corporations located in Port Arthur to change the way they do business so that they can become better neighbors,” said Mr. Kelley.
Making Things Better for All of Us
Mr. Kelley’s work has taken him places he never expected to go. “I’ve testified in Washington, DC before Congress concerning the high levels of toxic emissions in our community, and before European Parliaments about international companies like Shell Oil, urging them to hold their companies accountable for what they do in communities abroad,” said Kelley.
Mr. Kelley believes CIDA is making an impact on environmental policies by being informed and speaking out. “I know we’re making things better. We have made refineries in our area reduce gas flaring, we have stopped the expansion of chemical plants in fenceline communities and made them install monitors at their facilities, but there is more to work on before we are done. We must keep a close watch on these big polluters.”
Now that Mr. Kelley is back in Port Arthur, he is committed to repairing Hurricane Rita’s damage to CIDA’s community center so he can have a place to help people returning to the area get back on their feet. The Healthy Building Network is providing resources through the GreenRelief project to get a roof back on CIDA’s community center so that Hilton Kelley can get back to doing the important work he’s doing to make the earth a better home for all of us.
