Nothing stops Paul Chell from doing what he does best.
Not even Hurricane Katrina.
Chell, 32, a White Dog Cafe employee from 1999 to 2001, was working at Bayona -- a Mediterranean, Asian and Indian restaurant in New Orleans' French Quarter -- until Katrina forced him to evacuate the city.
But he's already back in the kitchen, serving up orders to hungry customers. For the moment, he has stepped back into his old chef's uniform at the White Dog.
Along with his girlfriend, Rachel Witwer -- a graduate student attending Tulane University at the time -- Chell scrambled to pack up food, water, clothes and his cat before leaving his apartment Aug. 28 at 5:30 a.m. He lived only a few blocks away from the New Orleans Convention Center.
Witwer received a call from her mother urging her and Chell to leave the city. Her mother had been in touch with a friend who was a meteorologist and had advised her of the dangers of the approaching storm.
"We were driving through the city and there was nobody," Chell said. But as "soon as we hit the highway, that's where everyone was."
Despite the long lines of traffic, Chell said that no one honked a horn or was impatient. The couple drove to Baton Rouge, Louisiana's capital, and finally to Shreveport in the northwest of the state.
So far, Chell has heard from neighbors that his apartment suffered roof damage. Although he wants to go back to see for himself, Chell gently chides himself for worrying so much.
"At the end of the day, it's just stuff," he said.
Witwer, however, doesn't feel the same.
"There was no room for pictures. That's the saddest part of losing stuff, not being able to replace the sentimental stuff," she said.
At the moment, Chell is staying with friends in Philadelphia while Witwer is home with her family in Washington and is finishing up her master's degree in public health at George Washington University.
Although Chell never attended culinary school, he turned to cooking as a hobby shortly after graduating from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County with a philosophy degree.
Chell's career at the White Dog started when he was job-hunting and stumbled upon the restaurant. He decided to take Witwer to dinner there to test out the atmosphere of the place.
Satisfied with the food, Chell filled out an application on the spot and was hired shortly thereafter.
He plans to wait until Witwer graduates in December before returning to New Orleans. But he is already actively involved in helping out those who were left behind in the city.
The restaurant had originally planned to hold a fundraising event for Chell and the employees at Bayona, but Chell protested.
"I have a job, I have a place to stay. There's people who need help more than I do," he said.
Instead, he proposed donating the funds to a day center and clinic in New Orleans where Witwer worked full time while attending Tulane as a part-time student.
"We'll use part of the funds to replace the things that were looted," Witwer said. The center is currently closed due to structural damage from flood waters.
The event, scheduled for Oct. 13 at 6:30 p.m., will feature music and New Orleans-themed food.
"Everyone's going to be working for free," White Dog spokesman Tom Kurland said.
Even though it is still a few weeks away, Chell said he is looking forward to the event.
"The spirit of New Orleans hasn't died," he said. "New Orleans will come back and be twice as great."
