The morning of August 27th, 2005 dawned like most August days in Bartlesville. Hot and sunny. It was Saturday and my husband had to work that day. I was in my normal routine of sittnig at the computer reading my email with Fox News on the tv. The big discussion that morning was of Hurricane Katrina which had come ashore in Southern Florida and then gone back into the Gulf and was heading for New Orleans.

We were pretty familiar with both New Orleans and hurricanes. Our oldest son, Brandon, had accepted a scholarship to play football at Tulane University. Over the course of his time at Tulane, several hurricanes had affected them even enough to evacuate all the student athletes to Hattiesburg at the beginning of his senior year. They took a photo of them all when they got there and it looked like a group mug shot.

Prior to Tulane, we had all lived in Clearwater, Florida for 7 years. In all those years, we only cancelled our plans one time and then picked them back up the following morning when the hurricane took a turn to the south. School had been cancelled only one other time and the day the hurricane was to arrive was a gorgeous sunny day. We were all pretty cavalier about what a REAL hurricane could really do.

As you can see, I’m not an alarmist about hurricanes but there was something different about this one. Joe Bastardi the Accuweather forecaster is a pretty smart guy and he was saying that this hurricane, which would eventually become one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Gulf, was heading right for New Orleans.

After Brandon graduated from Tulane, he took a job in New Orleans so he could be close to his fiance’ who would be a rising junior in the fall. I spent several hours looking at the weather reports and going back and forth in my mind about whether I should call Brandon and tell him he needed to come home. He was, after all, an adult who had just moved into his very first apartment 3 days earlier.

The reports continued to get worse and I had a very, very bad feeling in my stomach so I finally decided I would call him and he could hate me forever, but at least he would be alive to hate me. Around 11 a.m. I decided to call Brandon. I told him, Brandon they are saying it’s going to be category 5 and it’s headed straight for you. He said, but mom, Erika is arriving back to school tomorrow and I need to be here for her. After getting off the phone with Brandon, I sat right down to the computer and wrote Erika’s mom an email. I told her the same information. That Katrina was strong and even if they were going to let planes land, which I sincerely doubted, please do not put Erika on the plane back. She had already received this information from the tennis coach so she was keeping Erika home in Mexico.

Once Brandon learned that Erika would not be coming back on Sunday, he decided he would leave very early that morning and got out of town right before the Mayor issued a mandatory evacuation. By that time, they had instituted the contraflow, turning all lanes of traffic to head out of the city. Living quite close to the I-10 ramp, Brandon felt fairly sure that he knew what he was doing. At 3:30 a.m. the phone rang and it was Brandon, crying. Now this is a big 6’5” 265 lb defensive lineman and he was completely terrified because he had no idea where he was going. He had had to get onto I-55 north which was actually a blessing and he made it home in the normal 12 hours.

In the meantime, he had no idea where his office mates had gone. On Monday, when the hurricane actually hit, all cell phone service went down. He had left a message on his office manager’s cell phone but was then unable to reach her. Initially, he had been able to get his office email and he emailed them to let them know he was in OK and then he couldn’t get his email anymore. On Wednesday, his office manager finally called him and by Friday, his company had rented 3 houses in Baton Rouge set up shop there. They flew Brandon to Baton Rouge on Friday. They were down for only 3 days.

In the meantime, Erika had to return to Tulane and the tennis team. The different sports teams were farmed out all over the south. We learned that her parents had put her on a plane but that was the last they had heard of her. We had no idea how to find out if she had been picked up at the hotel in Dallas. Rebeca, gave me Coach Shumaker’s cell phone number. The only way to reach people at this point, was via text messaging. For some reason this worked when the rest of the phone services were down. I didn’t have a cell phone at the time and Erika’s mom was beside herself with worry. I have a friend, whom I have never met but have “known” via email for several years. I asked her if she could help me and pretty soon, I was on a three way call with Patti and Coach Betsey Becker. Coach Becker said she had picked up some tennis players at the airport but she didn’t think that Erika was amongst them. I told her, Erika is a pretty blonde girl with amber eyes from Mexico. And she said, “Oh yes! I have Erika. Do you want to speak to her?” Erika got on the phone, “Hi Mom! I’m fine!” So cute. Oh I was SO happy that she was okay and that I could pass along good news to her mom and to Brandon.

The Tulane Women’s Tennis Team went to SMU originally but then were transferred to Texas A&M; for the fall semester. Coming from a small school like Tulane, Erika had a bit of culture shock being on such a large campus but my mom’s good friend from high school works at Texas A&M; so Erika had a surrogate grandma helping her out.

Brandon’s company move back to New Orleans just before Christmas and Erika returned after the new year. Although Erika’s sport was cancelled and her course of study was also cancelled, Tulane is honoring her scholarship and she has 18 months to complete her course of study to receive the Exercise and Sports Science degree. Brandon was very blessed indeed in that he only lost the items in his freezer. The people who own his company were very forward thinking and got the company reestablished in only 3 days. Compared to what many others suffered in the wake of Katrina, our story – while a little dicey at times – has a happy ending. The next time any of us are threatened to be rocked like a hurricane, you can bet we will take action!