When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, it forced thousands of New Orleans families to leave behind their homes, churches, and memories. Among those who fled were members of the Jones and Smith families, who ultimately resettled in Tallulah, Louisiana. Their stories of evacuation, loss, and rebuilding reflect both the trauma of displacement and the resilience of faith and family.
Leaving New Orleans
Reverend Jessie Jones and his wife Maxine had lived in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans for four decades after moving there from Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1965. When evacuation orders came, they joined the long line of traffic out of the city, reaching Brookhaven, Mississippi, around midnight after an eight-hour drive that normally took just three and a half. Their house, built four feet off the ground, was flooded with six feet of water. They lost their home, their church, and decades of photographs. “We lost all of the material things. But we left with the best thing — life,” Reverend Jones said.
Roxanne Jones, who lived just a few blocks from her parents in the Ninth Ward, delayed leaving at first. She finished a shift at the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services and kept a long-scheduled hair appointment as the skies darkened. That night, she packed quickly and spent ten hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic driving to Vicksburg. When she returned to her house weeks later, she found a waterline ten feet high on the walls. Nearly all her belongings were lost, including the photographs she had spent years taking of her family.
Carolyn Jones Smith and her husband Joseph had just completed their home in the Lower Ninth Ward when they made the decision to evacuate. Carolyn recalled hearing a news report that compared the approaching storm to Hurricane Betsy. She urged her husband, a minister, to leave. Along with their extended family, they joined 18 relatives in a Vicksburg home her father had purchased seven months earlier without knowing why. Days later, news reports showed their neighborhood submerged. When they eventually returned, the house had been filled with 11 feet of water. Their refrigerator was found in the front yard. “Seeing your forever being no more, it was awful,” Carolyn said.
Adjusting to Life as Refugees
In the aftermath, each family faced the reality of being displaced. Relief organizations such as the United Way and Salvation Army provided food, clothing, and rent assistance. Reverend Jones and Maxine decided not to return to New Orleans, eventually settling in Tallulah after visiting a local bank. Reverend Jones re-established his church under the same name it had carried in New Orleans.
Roxanne was reassigned by her agency first to Baton Rouge and later to Tallulah, where she continued her career at the food stamp office. Having long worked to process assistance for others, she described the difficulty of suddenly being the one sitting across the desk, waiting on a Red Cross voucher. That experience changed her perspective on her work. “It was challenging being on the other side of the desk at the Red Cross waiting for \$150 voucher to go get whatever,” she said.
For Carolyn and Joseph Smith, the trauma was compounded by personal loss. Joseph’s mother, moved from her nursing home during the evacuation, was missing for days before being found in a Baton Rouge hospital. She passed away shortly after they located her. Carolyn said every rainstorm still brings back memories of the floodwaters. Yet the family worked to rebuild. They purchased homes in Vicksburg and Tallulah and later opened the Safe Haven Learning Center in Tallulah, providing educational services to children until the COVID-19 pandemic forced its closure.
Holding Onto Faith and Family
All three families spoke of faith and family as central to their survival and recovery. Reverend Jones emphasized that while material possessions were lost, “the material things is only temporary.” Maxine said she never returned to see their destroyed home, choosing instead to focus on the safety of her children and grandchildren.
Roxanne said Katrina forced her to re-evaluate her life. Once accustomed to the pace of New Orleans, she came to appreciate raising her child in Tallulah, where “this kind of slowed me down, so to speak. And I can appreciate it. I really can”.
For Carolyn, rebuilding in Tallulah was an act of faith. She compared leaving New Orleans to losing a loved one. “It’s like you have a romance that didn’t break up, the other person just died,” she said. Yet she credited her family’s closeness and Tallulah’s welcome with helping them heal. “Our faith keep us strong and our faith keeps us strong as I make it,” she said.
A New Home in Tallulah
Nearly twenty years later, these families remain in Tallulah, where they found refuge and built new lives. They carry with them the memory of what was lost in New Orleans, but also the strength of what was preserved: family, faith, and community.
