In the Eye of the Storm: Four Months with Hurricane Katrina Survivors
When Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005, it forever altered the landscape of the Gulf Coast—and of my life. It remains the longest and most emotionally intense deployment of my professional career. For four months, I served as a trauma therapist on the front lines, working alongside rescue teams, nonprofit agencies, and local communities to offer crisis counseling, reunification support, and basic human connection during the darkest of days.
The Disaster by the Numbers
Before I share the personal stories, it's important to understand the magnitude of what we were facing:
Category 3 Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana and Mississippi, causing over $125 billion in damage.
The levee failures flooded 80% of New Orleans.
Over 1,800 people lost their lives.
More than 500,000 people were displaced.
Tens of thousands of homes were destroyed.
An estimated 1,000 children were reported missing in the first weeks.
The Coast Guard rescued more than 33,500 people.
Red Cross shelters provided refuge for nearly 1.4 million people across the U.S.
This wasn’t just a natural disaster—it was a human one.
Phase One: Arrival and Overwhelming Chaos
I arrived in New Orleans in the first week of September, less than 10 days after the storm hit. The city smelled of floodwater, rot, and exhaustion. There was no blueprint for what we were facing. Rescue teams were still pulling people from rooftops while bodies floated in the streets. The airports had become triage centers. Shelters overflowed. Communications systems were down. No one knew who had survived, who was still missing, or where help was coming from next.
Reuniting a Mother and Her Son
One of my earliest and most emotional encounters was with Angela, a young mother who had been separated from her 6-year-old son during evacuation. She carried a worn, water-damaged photo of him in her pocket and hadn’t heard a word in five days. Through the Red Cross’s Safe and Well system, and with the help of shelter coordinators and volunteers across three states, we finally located her son in a shelter in San Antonio. The reunion happened days later, and I’ll never forget the moment she dropped to her knees and sobbed as he ran into her arms. She told me, “I can live with nothing… as long as I have him.”
Phase Two: Survival, Food Lines, and Shared Humanity
As weeks passed, the acute rescue stage shifted toward survival support. I joined volunteer teams handing out food and water in Baton Rouge and Waveland, Mississippi, where thousands were lined up daily for basic nourishment.
Feeding the Soul with Food and Presence
At a makeshift community kitchen, I served lunch to families, children, first responders, and volunteers. One elderly man broke down over a simple bowl of soup. “It’s the first hot meal I’ve had in two weeks,” he whispered. I quickly learned that food was more than sustenance—it was hope. Sometimes I’d sit down on the curb with a firefighter and just eat quietly. That silence often said more than any therapy session could.
In Waveland, the New Waveland Café fed thousands three times a day out of a tent. I worked side by side with volunteer chefs and trauma teams. People thanked us not just for food—but for not disappearing when the cameras left.
Phase Three: Counseling the Helpers
As rescue turned to recovery, I worked with dozens of first responders, most of whom had lost their own homes and were still pulling double shifts.
The Firefighter Who Couldn’t Cry
One firefighter I worked with had been on scene since day one. He had retrieved bodies from attics, tried CPR on lifeless children, and slept in his truck. When we sat down for counseling, he said, “I used my hands to save strangers, but I couldn’t save my home. I haven’t cried once. I’m afraid if I start, I won’t stop.” We built a trust that allowed him to eventually release that grief. He later told me, “You didn’t save me. You just reminded me that I was worth saving.” That is the power of showing up and staying.
Police Officers Torn Between Duty and Family
Another responder had sent his wife and kids to Texas but stayed to work. He confessed to feeling like a coward—for protecting the public while not being there for his own family. Through our sessions, he began to see that his courage wasn't just in staying—but in being willing to sit with his guilt and do the work of healing.
Phase Four: The Long Tail of Trauma
Three months in, many were still living in FEMA trailers. Kids weren’t in school. Communities had been scattered across state lines. Mental health needs increased with every passing day.
47% of adults in New Orleans showed signs of PTSD.
Over 31% of first responders screened positive for depression or PTSD.
Suicide ideation and substance misuse rose sharply.
A Mothers’ Support Circle
In Biloxi, I facilitated a weekly trauma group for displaced mothers. One mother said, “My child has stopped speaking since the storm.” Another said her child refused to sleep unless they were touching. We processed their pain, shared strategies for trauma-informed parenting, and laughed when laughter returned. Over time, their children began to sleep again. They drew pictures. They smiled.
That group reminded me that trauma may fracture people, but community is what stitches us back together.
What I Learned from My Longest Deployment
These four months changed me.
I saw how trauma never travels alone—it brings loss, grief, guilt, fear, and sometimes, unexpected resilience.
I learned that therapy doesn't always look like a couch and a clipboard—sometimes it's handing someone a meal, or just sitting in silence.
I witnessed the deep cracks in our system, but also the strength of grassroots healing: volunteers, church groups, nurses, and trauma therapists who stayed.
I believe that Katrina survivors taught me more about the human spirit than any training ever could.
Final Thoughts
It’s been nearly 20 years, and I still carry these stories. Not because I haven’t healed—but because these stories are a reminder of why I do what I do. The families, the first responders, the strangers-turned-survivors—each one taught me something about resilience, connection, and hope.
When we talk about trauma, we must also talk about healing. When we talk about disaster, we must also talk about community.
And when we talk about survivors, let us never forget their strength.
Four Months in the Eye of the Storm (Part II): Bearing Witness, Becoming the Anchor
People often ask what the hardest part of that deployment was—was it the scope of the destruction? The emotional exhaustion? The sleepless nights? Yes, to all of it. But what I carry most, even now, are the stories—the ones I was told, and the ones I was privileged to be a part of. Because in the eye of the storm, when nothing makes sense, stories become anchors. They remind people who they are. They remind you who you are.
“You Look Like Someone Who’d Listen”
I met a woman named Miss Loretta outside a mobile health unit in the Ninth Ward. She was sitting on an overturned crate, holding a notebook soaked with water damage. She looked up and said, “You look like someone who’d listen.”
She didn’t ask for a counselor. She didn’t want to fill out a form. She just needed to tell someone that her brother drowned in their attic while she escaped through a broken window. And she needed someone—anyone—to help her understand how to live with that.
So I sat. I didn’t interrupt. I didn’t “therapize.” I simply bore witness.
Sometimes, being a trauma therapist means holding the unbearable without trying to fix it. Miss Loretta taught me that. At the end of that conversation, she stood up, wiped her eyes, and said, “Thank you for letting me be a person again.”
The Storm Within the Badge
I spent nearly a month embedded with police officers and EMTs who hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since August. Some had witnessed such death and despair that they no longer spoke in full sentences—just fragments of memory and pain. And yet, every morning, they reported for duty.
One officer, Jeremy, told me his badge felt heavier than his weapon. He said, “People thank me for being strong. They don’t realize this uniform is the only thing keeping me from falling apart.”
We met regularly in the back of his squad car, parked outside what used to be a grocery store. One night, after a particularly tough shift, he whispered, “You don’t think I’m weak for being here, do you?”
I told him: “Strength isn’t the absence of pain. It’s the willingness to face it. And you're facing it.” That moment shifted him. He later became a peer support leader for his department.
The Children Who Carried Too Much
I will never forget the little boy named Dion.
Seven years old, displaced from his home in Gentilly, living in a Red Cross shelter with his grandmother. Every day, he wandered the halls wearing an oversized hoodie with the sleeves rolled up. He didn’t speak for the first two weeks I saw him—just colored in silence. One day, I sat beside him and asked, “What are you drawing?”
He looked up, pointed at the picture, and said, “That’s my house. That’s the water. That’s the angel who held my baby sister.”
He wasn’t just drawing. He was creating meaning in the chaos. That’s what trauma work with children is—offering them a safe space to create meaning from the unimaginable.
By the end of our time together, Dion had created a series of drawings. He gave me one: a picture of two people sitting on a bench, under a sun that was starting to rise. He titled it: After the Rain.
The Emotional Geography of Disaster
Every disaster has two geographies: one physical, and one emotional.
The first is mapped in miles and flood levels. The second is mapped in eyes, voices, and the pause between sentences when someone says, “I’m fine,” but you know they’re not.
For four months, I navigated both maps. And it took everything I had.
There were nights I lay awake in a cot, wondering if I could absorb one more story, offer one more comforting word. I questioned if I was enough. And every morning, I reminded myself: You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be present.
Legacy in the Ruins
We often measure success in therapy by symptom reduction or treatment goals. But in Katrina, success looked different:
A first responder who didn’t drink himself to sleep for the first time in weeks.
A teenager who finally made eye contact again.
A woman who laughed for the first time since she lost everything.
These were sacred victories. Invisible to the world—but unforgettable to those of us who witnessed them.
Why We Stay
I stayed for four months not because I had to—but because I knew that healing takes time. And trust. And proximity.
Trauma doesn’t resolve itself in a week or two. It lingers. It curls up in corners and hides behind normalcy. That’s why we, as trauma therapists, have to stay longer than the news cycle. We have to show up when others move on.
And in doing so, we become something rare and powerful: a reminder that people are not alone.
What Katrina Gave Me
Oddly enough, I left Katrina with more than I brought.
I learned the power of silence—how presence is its own intervention.
I learned that trauma is rarely about what happened, but what it meant—and what was lost.
I learned that healing isn’t just possible—it’s inevitable when compassion, community, and connection exist.
Final Words: A Therapist’s Oath in the Rubble
There’s a quote I carry with me:
“To be of use is the greatest reward.”
In the muck and aftermath of Katrina, I was of use. Not by fixing everything. But by listening. By holding. By staying.
That’s the therapist’s oath we don’t talk about enough: to stay. To sit in the mess. To honor the pain. To never flinch.
It was the longest deployment of my life. And one of the most sacred chapters I’ve ever lived.
With deep respect for the survivors, first responders, and angels of Katrina—
Thank you for letting me bear witness.
– Dennis Carradin, Jr., LPCMH, NCC, BCETS
Founder, The Trauma Survivors Foundation
