C.R. woman searches for missing brother   By Steve Gravette

CEDAR RAPIDS — The last time Betty Clark talked to her brother. Hurricane Katrina was storming ashore into the front yard of his Biloxi, Miss., apartment.

“I guess the water was rising, “said Clark, 63, of 811 18th St. SE. “He said, ‘We’re on the second floor.’ He said, ‘This phone’s starting to cut out. If I don’t see you. Not to worry.’ While he was talking I was praying.”

Since that conversation the morning of Aug. 29. Clark has continued a futile long distance search for Al-Amin Hunafa, 57. His friends in Biloxi haven't been able to approach his beachfront neighborhood, and inquiries to Biloxi city agencies and the Red Cross have turned up no clues.

“One (friend) said she couldn’t get over that way because it was blocked." Said Clark. “The Red Cross said it had to be family member to get in.” Clark said she had two lengthy telephone conversations with the Red Cross, providing information about her brother and his last whereabouts. But when she called back a few days later, “they didn’t have any record of my earlier calling.”

Hunafa moved to Biloxi from Waterloo a little more than a year ago, Clark said. He was still recovering from open heart surgery’ that had prevented him from returning to his construction job. Growing up in Cedar Rapids, Hunafa was Milford Smith — he changed his name after converting to Islam.  He graduated from Cedar Rapids Washington High School in the mid-1960s, played basketball at Kirkwood Community College, married, had four children and divorced. Hunafa, who also lived in Des Moines and Waterloo, graduated from Barber College and truck-driving school but liked to try different jobs, according to his sister.  "He’d done a lot of things,” Clark said. “He was really a brilliant student.” Despite scanty finances, Hunafa moved to Biloxi to be with a girlfriend he’d met.  “We couldn’t understand that, because he was struggling a little,” Clark said. “He never let too much bother him, and we suspected he should have.” That may be why Hunafa didn't evacuate. Clark said. “He had many friends,” Clark said of her brother.

“He brought a lot of joy.”