THIS IS WHY WE WILL SURVIVE....THIS IS WHY WE HOLD HOPE...THIS IS WHY WE
ARE HERE
Survivor Story: 6-Year-Old Leads Five Toddlers, Baby To Safety
WLEX-TV
In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard in New Orleans last Thursday, one
group of survivors stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road,
holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around
as if he were their leader.
They were holding hands. Three of the children were about two years old,
and one was wearing only diapers. A three-year-old girl, who wore colorful
barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow.
The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was
Deamonte Love.
Thousands of human stories have flown past relief workers in the last
week, but few have touched them as much as the seven children who were
found wandering together Thursday at an evacuation point in downtown New
Orleans. In the Baton Rouge headquarters of the rescue operation,
paramedics tried to coax their names out of them; nurses who examined them
stayed up that night, brooding.
Transporting the children alone was "the hardest thing I've ever done in
my life, knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been
abandoned, said Pat Coveney, a Houston emergency medical technician who put
them into the back of his ambulance and drove them out of New Orleans.
"It goes back to the same thing," he said. "How did a 6-year-old end up
being in charge of six babies?"
At the rescue headquarters, a cool tile-floored building swarming with
firefighters and paramedics, the children ate cafeteria food and fell into
a deep sleep. Deamonte volunteered his vital statistics. He said his father
was tall and his mother was short. He gave his address, his phone number
and the name of his elementary school.
He said the 5-month-old was his brother, Darynael, and that two others
were his cousins, Tyreek and Zoria. The other three lived in his apartment
building.
The children were clean and healthy -- downright plump in the case of the
infant, said Joyce Miller, a nurse who examined them. It was clear, she
said, that "time had been taken with those kids." The baby was "fat and
happy."
"This baby child was terrified," he said. "After she relaxed, it was
gobble, gobble, gobble."
The children were transferred to a shelter operated by the Department of
Social Services, rooms full of toys and cribs where mentors from the Big
Buddy Program were on hand day and night. For the next two days, the staff
did detective work.
Deamonte began to give more details to Derrick Robertson, a 27-year-old
Big Buddy mentor: How he saw his mother cry when he was loaded onto the
helicopter. How he promised her he'd take care of his little brother.
Late Saturday night, they found Deamonte's mother, who was in a shelter in
San Antonio along with the four mothers of the other five children. Catrina
Williams, 26, saw her children's pictures on a web site set up over the
weekend by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. By
Sunday, a private plane from Angel Flight was waiting to take the children
to Texas.
In a phone interview, Williams said she is the kind of mother who doesn't
let her children out of her sight. What happened the Thursday after the
hurricane, she said, was that her family, trapped in an apartment building
on the 3200 block of Third Street in New Orleans, began to feel desperate.
The water wasn't going down and they had been living without light, food
or air conditioning for four days. The baby needed milk and the milk was
gone. So she decided they would evacuate by helicopter. When a helicopter
arrived to pick them up they were told to send the children first and that
the helicopter would be back in 25 minutes. She and her neighbors had to
make a quick decision.
It was a wrenching moment. Williams' father, Adrian Love, told her to send
the children ahead.
"I told them to go ahead and give them up, because me, I would give my
life for my kids. They should feel the same way," said Love, 48. "They
were shedding tears. I said, Let the babies go.' "
His daughter and her friends followed his advice.
"We did what we had to do for our kids, because we love them," Williams
said.
The helicopter didn't come back. While the children were transported to
Baton Rouge, their parents wound up in Texas, and although Williams was
reassured that they would be reunited, days passed without any contact. On
Sunday, she was elated.
"All I know is I just want to see my kids," she said. "Everything else
will just fall into place."
At 3 p.m. Sunday, DSS workers said good-by to seven children who now had
names: Deamonte Love; Darynael Love; Zoria Love and her brother Tyreek.
The girl who cried "Gabby!" was Gabrielle Janae Alexander. The girl they
called Peanut was Degahney Carter. And the boy whom they called G was
actually Lee -- Leewood Moore Jr.
The children were strapped into car seats and driven to an airport, where
they were flown to San Antonio to rejoin their parents. As they loaded
into the van, the shelter workers looked in the windows; some wept.
The baby gaped with delight in the front seat. Deamonte was hanging onto
Robertson's neck so desperately that Robertson decided, at the last
minute, to ride with him as far as Lafayette.
Shelter worker Kori Thomas, held Zoria, 3, who reached out to smooth her
eyebrows. Tyreek put a single fat finger on the van window by way of
goodbye.
Robertson said he doubted the children would remember much of the
helicopter evacuation, the Causeway, the sweltering heat or the smell of
the flooded city.
"I think what's going to stick with them is that they survived Hurricane
Katrina," he said. "And that they were loved."
Janice "Jana" Webre
http://www.rootsweb.com/~laafamer
http://www.stjamesparish.jwebre.com
http://www.stjohnparish.jwebre.com
http://www.stcharlesparish.jwebre.com
http://www.lafourcheparish.jwebre.com
http://www.webrefamily.jwebre.com
-------Original Message-------
From: anniegms(a)bellsouth.net
Subject: [LAGENWEB] Re: Driving through Uptown New Orleans
Sent: Sep 09 '05 15:52
Some dumb Yankee Pollster held a poll and stated 65% of the people polled
didn't want New Orleans rebuilt because it is below sea level! Damn
Yankees at it again! Said the poll was taken Sept 6-8. Hell half of us
didn't even have phone service down here then. I bet none of those folks
ever set foot in New Orleans! If they are looking for a reason for the
South to Secede again, just let them try not rebuilding New Orleans!
Ann