TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Gustav Brings Back Painful Memories For Katrina Refugees

ADVERTISEMENT

By YVETTE C. HAMMETT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 1, 2008

RIVERVIEW - Evelyn Williams felt pangs of disgust as she headed east on Interstate 10 Saturday, fleeing Hurricane Gustav.

She and her godson, Karlos Atkinson, passed a long line of empty busses headed toward New Orleans, bound to transport the masses to safety.

In 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approached, there were no buses. She and thousands of others had no way out.

Williams and her family went to the Super Dome, where they watched a portion of the roof blow off, then lived the chaos that would ensue.

Days later, she would watch helplessly as her daughter, Nicole Fontenot and her grandchildren, Troy, now 17, and Dymond, now 12, were evacuated without her. They ultimately arrived in Riverview, southeast of Tampa, where they remain.

"I done been to more funerals since Katrina than I've been to in my whole life," Williams said, sitting in the comfort of the house off McMullen Road in Riverview.

Still, Williams said, she is blessed. Her house in the Mid City area of New Orleans received heavy wind damage in 2005, but didn't flood.

Fontenot wasn't so lucky. Her wood-frame house flooded when the levees breached.

The hope she had of one day moving back to New Orleans has faded.

For now, at least, Riverview is home; a home where her son, a senior at Riverview High School, is captain of the basketball team. A home where her daughter, a seventh grader, has made friends at Rodgers Middle School, but still longs for her buddies in New Orleans.

Fontenot wept quietly as she listened to her mother talk Monday about her hometown, the storms, the rebuilding.

Even three years later, she said, it is painful to discuss.

This latest hurricane, Gustav, has brought back the painful memories, the dread the Fontenot family felt when they were forced to evacuate New Orleans.

Leaving is never easy, Atkinson said.

But for the people of New Orleans, it has gotten easier since Katrina

"They don't call it the Big Easy for nothin'," Atkinson said. "People have a laid-back attitude."

But people have learned. This time, he said, there was little hesitation.

"For me, it was anxiety," Atkinson said. His fiancee, who works for the sheriff's office, had to stay behind Saturday. He put her daughter on a bus for Arkansas before loading up and heading to Florida with Williams.

So many people, he said, only recently have returned to refurbished homes in New Orleans. Still, when Hurricane Gustav made a beeline for their coast, they packed up and got out, Atkinson said.

Lessons learned.

These days, Williams said, when a hurricane threatens, it's vacation time.

This time, Williams packed her family photographs and her jewelry, moved a few things to the second floor and got out.

"Material stuff can be replaced, she said. "At least everybody would be safe and together," she said of her decision to come to Riverview.

One more lesson from Katrina.

"If you're gonna die," Williams said, "you prefer to die with your family."

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 865-1566 or yhammett@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT