As one final Hurricane Katrina anniversary post, I thought that this was one of the most poignant tributes out there. John Mutter, a professor at Columbia University created this Hurricane Katrina Deceased-Victims List website and it's accompanying facebook page in an attempt to document all those who died as a result of the storm and its extended aftermath. The list, along with details of their passing, if available, is here. It's sobering to see the names of all the people that storm took with it: men, women, white, black...people of all ages - but so many elderly...one lady was 105, another 102....This particular family's experience has stayed with me since I first read it. It's the story of the Green family and here is what they were doing 4 years ago today:
Joyce Green, 73, died while on a rooftop waiting to be rescued; She suffered from Parkinson's disease and told her son Jonathan she would take care of NaiNai (Shanai Green). He told her not to give up, but she died. Marion Green, 69, Rita Green, 84, and Shanai Green, 3, also died. Shanai slipped off a roof into Hurricane Katrina's flood waters; The family didn't leave the home because of the traffic exiting the city. They went to the roof of the house. The house was floating down the street at the height of tree lines. Within five minutes, they landed two blocks away. Robert Green lifted Shanai to the roof of a more stable home. He turned around to grab the other two kids, but Shanai had fallen off the roof. The water was too treacherous to pull her out again. He yelled "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." He couldn't deal with it. He said he was her Paw-Paw and knew she knew he would pull her up out of that water.....Heartbreaking. If you do nothing else today, please take a few minutes to visit this list and remember all the good people that didn't make it out of that horrible flood 4 years ago.
Photo by Richard Masoner
No comments:
Post a Comment