Surviving Katrina

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(Photo: Courtesy Jody Simms)

On August 29, 2005, in New Orleans, Louisiana, at 2:00 a.m., the power went out in nine-year-old Kyla’s house. She and her twin sister, her mother, grandmother, an older sister, a baby sister, plus an uncle and his son, woke—afraid—in the dark.

Hurricane Katrina was raging outside. “The water got higher, and my uncle and grandmother were trying to hold the door. But they couldn’t hold it anymore and—BAM!—the water came through,” she says.

The family rushed upstairs. “My mom kept telling me to pray. We were all crying,” says Kyla.

When morning came, Kyla’s mother and uncle saw a small boat outside the upstairs window and climbed in, grabbing a stick to paddle. They tried to pick up two elderly neighbors, but they couldn’t climb into the boat. “They died,” Kyla says in a whisper.

Her mother and uncle paddled down the street and scooped up food floating by. They returned with a treasure of crackers, noodles, candy, and soft drinks for the hungry family.

“On the second day, we saw helicopters, and my grandmother waved white curtains out the window,” she says. But the helicopters didn’t come to help them. A man in a boat rowed by and handed them diapers and a can of sausages.

That was a bad day. “I thought I was going to die,” Kyla says faintly. “I thought we would run out of food. We fanned each other with paper. It was so hot.”

The next day, determined to be rescued, her uncle smashed a hole in the roof and sent the children up. A helicopter finally arrived, dropped a basket and helped raise the family to safety, one by one.

Kyla says that her escape from the heat and the water has taught her not to give up. “I was scared before but now I will always be brave,” she says.

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