Sister Angele visiting New Orlean’s Café du Monde soon after its re-opening

Furthermore, no one but the hundreds of thousands who have lost their homes can know the extreme suffering being experienced. Also many of our sisters could write of their own journeys during these days beginning with the evacuation days up even until now when our Motherhouse, Faculty House, and Formation House are still uninhabitable because of damages done by 10- 12 feet of flood water.

However, since I was asked to tell of my own experience of Katrina, here is a brief sketch. Not realizing that Jefferson Parish had changed the evacuation call from “recommended” to “mandatory,” and hearing that three neighbor families with children intended to stay at home, I decided to remain at Shalom, our community’s Metairie residence. Sister Gwen Monahan and her sister Myra had already left for our strong, 4-story brick Motherhouse in New Orleans, and Sister Cheryl had to remain on duty at University Hospital in New Orleans. You might recall the news cast about people shooting at the helicopters trying to evacuate patients; well Sister Cheryl was there!!

However, in mid-afternoon our neighbors decided to evacuate! Realizing that it would not be safe for me to be alone and also not safe at that late hour to evacuate on I-10, I drove the couple of miles to our Motherhouse and joined the Monahan’s and Liz Hillard, a Motherhouse employee and her family. Through Sunday night, August 28th, we rode out the turmoil of howling winds, no electricity, and a non-functioning generator.

By morning we also had no running water, nor functioning sewerage. Later we became creative about how to handle the latter. However, we were grateful that there seemed to be less damage than we had expected, and thanked God that after so powerful a hurricane, we were still safe in a strong building.

Later we expressed our gratitude when the storm weakened. Then suddenly we noticed water rising rather quickly and beginning to cover our parked cars. We also discovered that the first floor, which housed our well-attended preschool, a meeting room, offices, and the host department, was flooding rapidly, too rapidly for us to go down to save anything. From a battery-powered radio we learned that the 17th Street Canal levee, less than a mile from the Motherhouse, was breeched.

The Motherhouse (left) and main building of the Academy taken from the rescue boat.

Throughout a very hot Monday night the water continued flowing, eventually flooding completely the first floors of the Motherhouse, of the Academy buildings, of the Faculty House, and our neighbors’ homes. Around 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, I could hear someone frantically attempting to break through a roof in order to escape. On a weak cell phone I unsuccessfully attempted to reach 911 and a radio station, and prayed that someone would reach the party. Later on Tuesday we noticed some neighbors waving to us from a hole ripped open by Katrina in the attic of one of the Academy’s buildings. It was Larry Jacobi, a member of our Carmelite Ministries Advisory Board, along with his wife, and some friends, one of whom had commandeered a boat left available by an evacuee. They boated over and asked to remain with us, and from the Motherhouse the men commandeered that boat and others to rescue people who had been sitting for many hours on roof tops and in trees.

In fact, they had already rescued the man that I had heard at 5 a.m. and had him with them when they boated over to us. He said that he had to dive back into his home and swim underwater to escape through a window, though for a moment he thought that he’d not reach the surface in time.

Our second floor front cement porch became a Mount Carmel landing dock. Other rescuers would stop by to ask how we were doing. Robert E. Lee Boulevard became a boat rescuing water way, with about 10 to 12 feet of water. At first the rescuers dropped off evacuees at our “dock,” but when we realized that we would not have enough water for more than had already arrived, and that at least one man was very ill and had no medicine, the boaters decided to take the ill to the Coast Guard station and the others to another point where they’d be taken on to evacuation centers.

During all this, Sister Gwen never lost her sense of humor: when she saw a dumpster floating swiftly by along with boards and other debris, she asked, “Angele, did you remember to put out the garbage?”

In the afternoon the water finally stopped flowing and rising because it had reached the same height as Lake Pontchartrain, which was itself exceptionally high. By this time we could no longer see the top of our automobiles, and inside the buildings the water had reached almost the top of the first floor. We held our breath as it neared the top step and then halted.

We had intended to remain there at least another night, but when a fireman came up to our Carmel Dock, he insisted that we needed to leave because the mosquitoes would swamp us and the odor of the settling water (which incidentally didn’t get pumped out until many days later) would nauseate us. Plus disease possibilities would be rampant. With that we packed up a few belongings and hopped into a beautiful boat being commandeered by a young man.

We boated along Robert E. Lee and then West End Blvd, sometimes bumping hidden submerged cars or street signs. Along the way Nick, our pilot, pointed out his home which had water up to the roof. It was all a strange sight, for the water with cypress trees reaching above it made it look like a lovely camp sight, but we knew that all along the way we were seeing home after home totally deluged.

We were taken to Veterans Boulevard, where, to our surprise, there was no flood water, and where volunteers were handing out cold water and Gatorade. Next in a small pick-up truck we journeyed to I-10/ I-610, then in an Army truck to the Causeway/I-10 overpass, where hundreds of evacuees, many with children, were waiting. It was also a point for helicopters to drop off evacuees rescued from roof tops, and a point for ambulances to pick up the sick.

We were told busses were coming, but we waited for 3 hours with only two showing up. Sister Gwen, Myra, and I chose not to wrestle with the crowd and sat down on a curb while trusting that other buses would arrive. Finally someone asked if we wanted a ride to Baton Rouge; we gladly accepted and were in a caravan of 40 cars driving about 85 miles an hour to an LSU gym, which was set up as a medical center. There students and others had mobilized to offer MRE’s, clean clothing, bottles and diapers for babies, and even food for dogs and cats. About 250 of us sitting outside under the stars and still awaiting our next ride were offered blankets during the wee hours of the morning. When 5:30 a.m. came, we called our sisters in Abbeville, Louisiana, who were happy to drive about two hours to come for us.

While we waited for Sister Fatima and a neighbor, a student happily offered to take us to a diner for a good hot breakfast. In Southwest Louisiana, Abbeville became our home until Sister Gwen went to Grand Coteau to teach New Orleans evacuees, at a satellite school for students of the Academy of the Sacred Heart. She is still there. Hurricane Rita chased me to our Carmelite Spirituality Center in Lacombe.

Full circle came, when Shalom, which had been damaged by flood waters, became sufficiently livable with the mold covered sheet rock removed and outer walls treated. Now I write this in an upstairs bedroom/office combination, while below Mickey Malone and his crew are hammering sheet rock in place. Sisters Maggie, Anne and I share life together in Shalom as best we can with one bedroom now serving as a kitchen and dining room. Thus ends my part of the saga.

The outreach to all the sisters has been most generous by so many people. For instance, our senior sisters, along with several other sisters, first evacuated to Saint Joseph Seminary near Covington. Then, because the gas service there had to be turned off, they were welcomed in the homes of Sister Lawrence’s relatives in Radley, in Southwest Louisiana. Meanwhile Father Harold Trahan, the pastor of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, in Lafayette, had his parishioners quickly recondition an empty convent, and then fully furnished it by friends from New Iberia and parishioners of Saint Leo and Saint Elizabeth parishes. When Hurricane Rita came, these sisters had to evacuate to Lacombe for a short time before returning to the convent in Lafayette, where they are now living since the Motherhouse will be uninhabitable for quite awhile.

Our elderly sisters who were at Our Lady of Wisdom skilled care residence in New Orleans first evacuated to Alexandria, Louisiana, and then happily moved to an available wing of a nursing care facility in Welsh, Louisiana. Even though it is not a Catholic facility, the director there has converted a room into a chapel and set-up a private gathering room, also used for a dining room for the sisters. The stories of kindness and generosity go on and on.

	The same statue as on the cover when the water had reached its deepest

Meanwhile, back in New Orleans the Motherhouse and the Academy are now dry, but there will be no power for months ahead and the inside damage is beyond description. We still do not know if the faculty house and the formation house can be saved. Workmen are working throughout the area gutting ruined buildings, hauling away ruined furnishings and clothing, and starting repairs. The city is trying to come back, but presently it is a formidable task.

Sister Camille Anne Campbell, principal of the Academy, is confidant that the school will re-open for the Spring semester.

Our sisters arrived in New Orleans in 1833, and we have been a part of the history of this city since. At the death of our foundress, Mother Therese Chevrel, in 1888 the newspapers noted, “Misfortune did not knock in vain at her door and it never departed unconsoled.” May the same be said of us through this misfortune today.