In 2005, I lived in Houston, Texas and had an opputunity, along with most of the rest of the city, to help with the Katrina evacuees.

In 2005, I lived in Houston, Texas and had an opputunity, along with most of the rest of the city, to help with the Katrina evacuees. I spent weeks getting up every morning at 3AM and hitting the Astrodome complex or GRW convention center and helping out.

It wasn’t anything special, half the city helped out, it seemed. For the first few weeks, you actually had to wait in line to volunteer at the Dome (Dome Sweet Dome). But some of the stories…

There was one lady there that had been at work when the storm hit. Her only daughter had been at day care a few miles away, closer to home. She had tried to get to her, but wound up stranded by floodwaters on an overpass with several other people.

After nearly 2 days, she was rescued by helicopter. They of course, would only evacuate her, not help her look for her child. She wound up in the Dome.

At first, she barely talked to anyone except to try and find her child. It was hard to really get solace from anyone, as the misery there was pretty much universal; everyone had lost someone. As a volunteer, you try, but there’s only so much you can do to help someone in a situation like that.

I talked to her when I could, talked to her about her daughter. She’d tell me how she was terrified of bicycles, could never eat enough carrots, and thought zebras were the best animals ever. My little boy was about the same age at the time, and those weird little kid things really resonated with me.

Then one morning, I was working the breakfast line. One of the other volunteers escorted her up to cut in line and get some food to go. As I got it together for her, she beamed “They found her, they found her, they FOUND her!” and gave me a big hug as I gave her the food.

Her daughter was in a shelter in San Antonio. They could transport her by bus that evening, but she didn’t want to wait. Another volunteer was driving her there that morning. As she was leaving, another volunteer walked up and gave her the biggest damn stuffed zebra I’ve ever seen.

I never saw her again. Still makes me tear up thinking about that morning. It was an honor and a privilege to work with those people.