Sunday, August 26, 2007
Faces of the storm: how New Orleans is coping 2 years on - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
... New Orleans police officer David Hunter hung up his badge in April after 28 years, the last 20 months spent attempting to help people who were hurt and stranded by Hurricane Katrina.
Hunter also was trying to replace his home. His wife and newborn daughter became seriously ill. And he banged up his personal boat when someone shot at him while he was plucking victims from the flooding.
It got worse:
An insurance company denied Hunter's claim after learning he had damaged his party barge while using it for police work — to help people — rather than to party on.
...
It has been a rough two years for Ricky Scales and his family, ever since Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters sent them on a long journey of frustration, fright, uncertainty and joblessness.
Their troubles began even as they tried to escape the black water spilling from New Orleans' broken levees, when Ricky, wife Tamika and 10-year-old Alfrenisha were separated from the family's four other children. The parents and daughter landed on the crest of a downtown bridge as they tried to make their way to shelter in the Superdome.
As they continued on, Ricky waded into water over his head. When he re-emerged, Tamika and Alfrenisha had disappeared.
...
For nearly a month after the storm, Ricky did not know whether his wife, three children and two stepchildren had survived. He was evacuated to a military-training base in Oklahoma, while Tamika and the five children landed in a Dallas jail, which had been turned into an evacuee center.
...
When Katrina floodwaters overcame his home, swamped his neighborhood and carried away his new Lincoln, Johnnie Montgomery, then 82, decided to take a stroll in the chest-deep water, tethered to his grandchild's air-filled ball.
"It was hot, and I was trying to stay cool," said Montgomery, an old-fashioned preacher, retired longshoreman and World War II veteran.
Montgomery still is keeping his cool, in a city still reeling with despair, with a determination to overcome his losses by keeping his faith. ...
... New Orleans police officer David Hunter hung up his badge in April after 28 years, the last 20 months spent attempting to help people who were hurt and stranded by Hurricane Katrina.
Hunter also was trying to replace his home. His wife and newborn daughter became seriously ill. And he banged up his personal boat when someone shot at him while he was plucking victims from the flooding.
It got worse:
An insurance company denied Hunter's claim after learning he had damaged his party barge while using it for police work — to help people — rather than to party on.
...
It has been a rough two years for Ricky Scales and his family, ever since Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters sent them on a long journey of frustration, fright, uncertainty and joblessness.
Their troubles began even as they tried to escape the black water spilling from New Orleans' broken levees, when Ricky, wife Tamika and 10-year-old Alfrenisha were separated from the family's four other children. The parents and daughter landed on the crest of a downtown bridge as they tried to make their way to shelter in the Superdome.
As they continued on, Ricky waded into water over his head. When he re-emerged, Tamika and Alfrenisha had disappeared.
...
For nearly a month after the storm, Ricky did not know whether his wife, three children and two stepchildren had survived. He was evacuated to a military-training base in Oklahoma, while Tamika and the five children landed in a Dallas jail, which had been turned into an evacuee center.
...
When Katrina floodwaters overcame his home, swamped his neighborhood and carried away his new Lincoln, Johnnie Montgomery, then 82, decided to take a stroll in the chest-deep water, tethered to his grandchild's air-filled ball.
"It was hot, and I was trying to stay cool," said Montgomery, an old-fashioned preacher, retired longshoreman and World War II veteran.
Montgomery still is keeping his cool, in a city still reeling with despair, with a determination to overcome his losses by keeping his faith. ...
Labels: suffering
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