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This letter is being composed on the 1 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on behalf of my mother. My mother, Myrtle, is a long-time resident of Louisiana, and was born and raised there. She moved to Texas as a young woman and met my father and raised 6 kids. She moved back to Louisiana 25 years ago after divorcing my father and married my step father, Edward. She stayed faithfully by his side as his health began to deteriorate after a massive heart attack and heart surgery. Eventually, he had to have dialysis and oxygen. My mom’s health also began to go down-hill, she has diabetes and emphysema. Living 600 miles away, I feel helpless.
Upon hearing the weather reports last August 2005, I called my mom and asked if she was evacuating. She and my step dad lived in a 30+ year old mobile home that had an additional two rooms added on. Based on my experience with living in a mobile, I knew that it couldn’t withstand hurricane winds. Much to my surprise, they were not planning to evacuate! I begged her to at least go to stay with my step brother in Baton Rouge, I told her that I had a feeling it was going to a bad storm this time. Finally, they decided to pack up and go to Baton Rouge. I talked with her in the morning shortly after she arrived at my step brother’s house. The winds were already starting to pick up there. However, she was in a brick house and if memory served me correctly, the big bad wolf couldn’t blow the brick house down. Much safer than that old mobile home. The phone lines went down and I did worry some, with my eyes fixated on the News. I knew she was okay. However, about 4pm that day, I had a horrible feeling in my gut. I thought, hmm, I didn’t pray for Grandma and Aunt Lena and all the other kin, maybe they are being affected by the storm. I had talked to a cousin who said he was on the phone with his dad who lived along the Pearl River and winds were about 90 mph and the phone went dead. The next day, I was able to get through to my step brother’s cell phone and he gave me terrible news. About 4 pm the day before, my step father and mother decided to drive back home to see if there was any damage to their home. Forget the warnings and downed trees; my step father was a determined man. At one point, he was told to turn around and go back to where he came from, but he knew all the back roads and kept going. My dad always used to say if an enemy ever tried to attack the U.S, he would go hide in all those pine trees in Louisiana and they couldn’t find him. Well, now all those tall pine trees were downed and littering the highways. I was fuming mad when I discovered this horrific news. For 3 days, I couldn’t reach my mother or know if she ever made it home. I posted Missing ads on the Internet sites that were set up for Katrina victims. When I heard that my city was going to be taking in evacuees, I rushed to help, maybe that would help alleviate my fears. I helped serve food to many of them, as well the helpers. It was a fairly organized operation, but sometimes I felt guilty. Some kids would come back for seconds, or missed the deadline to get their food by 30 minutes. We were instructed to not pass out anymore food because they were waiting for a bus of evacuees who had been without food for 3 days. I admit I couldn’t turn away the pregnant woman and children who came to the table late. I talked with some of them, finding out things that made my skin crawl. The ones who were evacuated to the Superdome seemed to have a more traumatic experience than those who stayed in their homes. I tried to comfort those I could, but inside, I was worried about my own family. The next day, I called my step brother and gave him a lecture for letting them go. I told him I realized his daddy was stubborn, but he should have held him back with whatever means were necessary. I asked him to drive back to their home to check on them. My step dad needs oxygen, and who knows how much he had left. I begged him to go right away. My husband wouldn’t let me jump on a plane, and if I did, where would it land? New Orleans was in chaos. Finally, I heard some good news that night. My step brother went to my mom’s house and saw all the trees strewn all over the yard, and half of the home destroyed. They weren’t there. He decided to drive to her cousin’s house where my mom had gone to deliver all the meat that had been in her deep freezer. She said when she walked outside and saw my step brother that she hadn’t been happier in all her life. She had told her husband that morning that they had to go back because he was out of oxygen and they didn’t have electricity. What would have normally been a 1.5 hour trip from Baton Rouge to their house took them 9 hours. When they got home in the middle of the night, they couldn’t even drive onto the driveway. Gas was spewing out from under the house and it was chaos. They slept in their car that first night. The next 2 nights they slept in their new recliners in the living room. Some water had come in through a broken window, but they were safe. The next day we got some bad news. My step father’s mother had been moved from the nursing home in Bogalusa when it lost power and she died of dehydration. The days and weeks that followed were painful for my mother and step father. They couldn’t get immediate help and eventually had to pay someone to cut and remove all the trees from their land. I remember when my aunt had a timber company pay her for the trees! I guess these trees weren’t valuable anymore in their current state.
After 4 months, FEMA gave a modest sum for repairs. Since there was no insurance, my mom had to find the cheapest materials and labor available. Fortunately, my uncle had a construction crew that would not charge too much. The repairs were done, though the bent frame on the mobile home couldn’t be repaired. The rooms that were added on sustained the bulk of the damage, and that was where the repairs were concentrated on. On Easter morning, I called my mom and found out she was going on a trip to the Smokey Mountains! That just happened to be the week where a bear mauled a little girl and her mother to death in those same mountains. Great, more to worry about! I was surprised that my step father agreed to go considering his health. I think he knew his time was short and he wanted to leave a good memory for my mom. She came back (thank God she didn’t find any bears)! and tried to make Edward as comfortable as possible. I talked on the phone to her every week, but I was busy with selling our house, buying another one, helping my husband’s business and schooling my children. Time was never on my side. One week after our move into the new house, I got a call from mama crying. “My baby is gone!” I thought at first she was referring to my brother or sister, but realized it was my step father. She had to go to the Emergency Room because she had been having nosebleeds every day for a week. She told my step father to go back home because it could be a while and she would call him when she was released. The doctors wanted to admit her, but she signed herself out. She tried calling home and there was no answer. She became worried and asked one of her cousins who had been visiting someone else in the hospital for a ride home. As soon as mama opened the door, she saw Edward sitting in his chair and just knew he was dead. At that point, she started to get hysterical and her cousin heard her and pulled back into the driveway. Mama told her to put his oxygen on, he will come back! It was too late. He was gone. I was able to arrange a few days off to fly with my brother on a plane to attend the funeral. I took my youngest son, 2 years old. I hadn’t been on a plane in over 12 years and had sworn after 9/11 that I never would. Well, 2 hours on a plane is a lot easier in a rush than 12 hours in a car with a toddler. At one point, I let my son look out the window right after take off. He said “We are in the sky! I don’t want to fall!” I don’t either baby! I made it through. The trip home was a little rough. Leaving mama was hard to do; I wished I could take her home with me. Three weeks after my step-father’s death, I called my mom on a Saturday and while I was talking to her, I heard my aunt in the background. There was a bad thunderstorm and she needed my mom to get off the phone and help her with the window that had never been repaired as rain was coming in. The front door blew open. A few minutes later, my mama called me back crying again. The roof had come off of the additional rooms again and water was pouring in, all over the new beds and her clothes and dressers. Could there be anything worse? Here she is grieving the loss of her husband, is in poor health, and now another disaster strikes.
To this day, those rooms are still damaged. FEMA won’t help her this time. She is still living there lonely and exhausted. She can’t even find a lawyer to help her sell the place so she can get away from it all. I am begging her to come here, but she has too much going on and her mama is in a nursing home up there. I just wanted to share this story; writing helps me to express my feelings. Hopefully it will help someone. Maybe even my mama.
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