Everyone has heard about the killer Hurricane Katrina and how it devastated New Orleans, LA, and the Mississippi coast. At the time of this writing, the huge category five storm was entering the low lying areas of Louisiana and Mississippi. It had been downgraded from a category five to a category two hurricane.
Three of the refugees from Hurricane Katrina were over at the Bride & Gift Gallery in Colquitt Monday evening visiting with the owner, Tammy Richardson. Patti Bush Johnston and Tammy Toole Richardson are lifelong friends.
There is an interesting story of how a family from New York found themselves stranded in a hotel in New Orleans, LA. and wound up in Colquitt, Georgia.
The trip to New Orleans started back when Summer, daughter of Patti and Mike, flew to her new school, Tulane, on Sunday, August 21, for pre-registration and a camping trip with some freshman friends. That didn’t start too good since Summer’s luggage wound up in Las Vegas and Australia.
The luggage was eventually returned to Summer in New Orleans.
Summer’s parents flew in to New Orleans to assist their daughter with orientation at Tulane on Thursday, August 25, just in time to be told to evacuate the city since the category five storm was heading directly toward them.
There was one little problem, Mike had just returned the rental car back to Hertz, and there were no cars available to leave town in.
Patti has a brother and sister-in-law, Lane and Lee Bush, who live in Bainbridge. The Bushes have neighbors and best friends who live next door to them, Bryan and Betsy Fabacher. The Fabachers have a brother, Kirk (who lives in New Orleans), that needed someone to drive one of his four vehicles to Bainbridge.
Patti and Mike found out about the need for drivers from Lane in Bainbridge.
Patti, in New Orleans and stuck without transportation to leave, called Kirk Saturday morning about driving one of his vehicles to Bainbridge. Kirk brought the vehicle to the hotel around 8:00 a.m. where Mike, Patti and Summer were staying. Kirk gave the strangers the key to one of his vehicles so they could drive to Bainbridge.
That’s how Mike, Patti and Summer Johnston got from New York to New Orleans to Bainbridge to Colquitt––in the vehicle of a man who had never seen them before.
Patti and her crew came to Colquitt to stay with her parents, Spud and Pat Bush, until they left Monday evening to fly out of Atlanta on Tuesday heading for their home in New York.
The question was asked, “How did all these events come about?”
That is when Patti’s mother, Pat Bush said, “I prayed that this would happen. I didn’t know how it would happen, but that our children would get home safe.”
When the Johnstons left New Orleans, the car owner Kirk, was staying until he got his vehicles out of New Orleans. He left nearly one hour after his first vehicle with Mike, Patti and Summer.
That is one hurricane story that turned out good. Someone had a hand in this story, and He is given full credit.
Summer was asked when she would return to Tulane to start classes. She stated that the school officials announced it would be at least one week, maybe more, before the students could return. She said that all her luggage and stuff were still in her room at the college––she hoped.
New Orleans is six feet below sea level in much of the large city, and if the levies do not hold, it could really be a disaster.
Late Monday evening, huge winds continued to hammer Mississippi’s Gulf Coast as angry Katrina triggered floods, felled trees and left hundreds of thousands of civilians without power.
Katrina walloped southeastern Louisiana Monday morning but lost some of its furor as it headed westward toward the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where authorities are expecting steady destruction as the storm rages into the early evening.
Winds, earlier gauged at 145 miles per hour, slowed to 105 miles per hour, as swelling rainwater compromised levees and weakened structures from New Orleans to Biloxi, Miss.
Despite the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, officials estimated that about 100,000 decided to stay put. With waters of Lake Ponchartrain rising at about a foot an hour, meteorologists said there is reason for great concern.
News agencies reported that many residents were stranded atop their vehicles and rooftops along parts of Route 10 outside of New Orleans as the waters continued to rise.
About 750,000 residents in southeast Louisiana and another 120,000 in Alabama were without power Monday afternoon, according to reports.
Katrina, downgraded from a Category 5 storm to a Category 2 by late Monday morning, claimed nine lives in Florida, where winds and rains slashed through areas of Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key with damage estimates between $600 million and $2 billion, the Associated Press reported.
Over the weekend, the mayor of New Orleans ordered everybody to get out as Katrina, listed originally as a Category 5 hurricane – the most powerful and deadly – bore down on the Big Easy. There have been only three Category 5 hurricanes in U.S. history; the last one, Andrew, in 1992, caused $20 billion in damage.
The hurricane was first predicted to make landfall in the Florida panhandle and then across southwest Georgia.
However, the storm then veered to the west and completely missed Georgia except for some needed rain and some threats of tornados.
The storm came ashore in the early hours near Grand Isle, LA, 60 miles south of New Orleans, having weakened slightly from a Category 5 to a Category 4 hurricane, but still one of the strongest to hit the mainland with winds of up to 165mph. Last night Katrina was downgraded to a Category 1 as it headed inland.
Tropical storm force winds continued to lash the area and residents were urged to sit tight. A curfew remained in force in New Orleans but some people emerged to inspect damage. Looting took place in one area and police made arrests.
The electricity grid for the entire New Orleans metropolitan area and surrounding towns was knocked out, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Many telephone lines are down.
A 20ft storm surge swamped coastal communities along the Gulf of Mexico and left the Mississippi towns of Biloxi and Gulfport 10ft under water. The Gulfport fire chief, Pat Sullivan, said, “It’s complete devastation.” Haley Barbour, the Governor of Mississippi, said: “The hurricane came down on us like a ton of bricks. We know some got trapped. There could be a lot of dead people.”
Water was still cascading last night over some of the levees that hold back water on Lake Pontchartrain, bordering the city. An estimated 40,000 homes in St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans, have been flooded after 10 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. Many of the lower-lying eastern districts were 6 feet under water after a 15 foot storm surge.
The historic French Quarter and downtown area weathered the storm, suffering superficial but widespread damage, but the surrounding region appeared to have taken a heavy hit.
An oil drilling platform broke free in Mobile Bay, AL, and slammed into a bridge, while several oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were reported to be adrift.
Water poured into New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain after a two-block-long breach opened overnight in a section of a levee that protects the low-lying city.
The death toll of the killer storm has not been completed and will not be for several days. The number killed in Florida when Hurricane Katrina crossed has been upgraded to 11 deaths. Recues are being made hourly in Lousiana, Mississippi and Alabama and deaths are being reported.
Nagin had said that about 80 percent of the city was flooded and that some areas were under 20 feet of water.
At least 30 people were killed at the St. Charles apartment complex, near the beach in the casino resort town of Biloxi, said Kelly Jakubic with the county’s Emergency Operations Center.
The killer storm spawned tornadoes in Georgia Monday and Tuesday. Tornado warnings were posted in Southwest Georgia.

Week of August 28, 2005