Almost 50 Slidell and Pearl River area residents made homeless by Hurricane Katrina’s devastation were evacuated over the weekend on two big tour buses with the promise of a new start in the Midwest.


The promise – guaranteed jobs and free apartments for up to six months – was made by Ed Blinn, a Marion, Ind., businessman who owns three used car lots and almost 100 apartments.



Some 47 people who had spent much of the week in five crowded, squalid school gymnasiums took him up on it the offer and boarded one of the buses Blinn hired to journey down the nation’s midsection and back.



They arrived at their new home, temporary or otherwise, late Monday afternoon and Blinn put them all up at a local hotel, he said in a telephone interview.

Times Picayune