Rhonda Uhlman, left, owner of the Imperial Hotel in Amador City and Helen DeFalco, business partner, will soon be providing living accommodations for two people displaced by the hurricane. Photo by: Marcia Oxford

Any day now, two people will step across the threshold of the Imperial Hotel in Amador City.

They will not be repeat or new hotel guests and, more than likely, they will never have been to California. They, either a mother and child or two adults, are among the thousands of evacuees left homeless after the disastrous Hurricane Katrina swept across the gulf states, leaving a swath of almost inestimable damage.

They will be welcomed as guests of hotel owner Rhonda Uhlman and her business partner, Helen DeFalco, to at least six months of accommodation at the Imperial. The two women are also offering possible employment, assistance in finding a permanent home and the potential of networking with others who escaped their home states with little but the clothes on their backs.

"After the hurricane hit, people across the country wanted to help and so did we," Uhlman said. "We've done something like this before. We were able to help out a local family so they could go to Sacramento to be at the hospital with their baby. The community was great then and we're going to need them again."

"There was this incredible waiting period for people trying to get anything from the Red Cross or FEMA," DeFalco said. "So I think people like us said, 'To heck with the government, we can take care of our own.' It's individuals and volunteer groups doing this. We're not sure who's going to come here. We know of one couple; she's on SSI and he's a contractor. There's a woman with two children in the fourth and fifth grades. There's another couple with an infant and another with three children whose dad stayed behind for the rebuilding effort."

Uhlman credited DeFalco for taking up the cause and running with it. DeFalco checked craigslist.org on the Internet, considered one of the hottest free classified services on the Internet; there, volunteers hooked up with survivors willing to relocate.

Those who were willing were screened for housing relocation with volunteers asking victims about their job skills, their needs and other questions. Families and individuals offering housing were equally screened. "They have to do that," Uhlman said. "They try to match people. These people are in such dire shape and the volunteers want to make sure they don't have to keep relocating them. We have a hotel and we knew we could help."

Through craigslist, DeFalco found several hurricane housing databases, from which a third nonprofit organization extracted names to match with those offering to help.

"What's absolutely amazing is that there were 30 names in our area code (95601) of people willing to house survivors," DeFalco said. "Volunteers would walk around the Astrodome with signs reading 'Interested in relocating to Florida, California, wherever.' Then, after interviews, they started matching people up," DeFalco added.

Noting that most people were evacuated with little if any identification, Uhlman said, "Men might still have their wallets, but women were interested in getting their children out so most of them left without purses or handbags. We're hoping the state of California will waive the ID situation for these people, because it's going to take so long to reestablish who they are and where they're from."

To smooth the transition for those whose lives were torn asunder, the women are setting up a bank account for donations and they plan to contact other families in their zip code to provide a sense of community for the transplants. Uhlman has a friend who is a nurse-therapist who may help those relocating with their emotional or physical needs. The pair also may call on churches in Amador and Sacramento for assistance.

DeFalco pointed out that craigslist also carries a link for animals impacted by the disaster. "There has been an overwhelming response from people offering to foster not only dogs and cats, but parrots and pigs, horses and donkeys. We have a family here that will foster horses if the community will buy the feed."

"I look around and think what do I really need," Uhlman said. "I need some understanding first. I need to know that somebody out there gives a damn. We do and so do others here and across the country. When these folks get here, we'll put together a list of what's needed to help them and get it in the newspaper."

"There is every kind of living arrangement you can imagine, but these people are starting from zero," DeFalco added. "This is not a permanent arrangement, but it's a way to rebuild a life. The goal is to get people into a community and taking care of themselves."