KATRINA HURRICANE IN NEW ORLEANS
 AUGUST 29,  2005

  
New Orleans Community- 2005
(Sister Margarita Rivera and Sister Elizabeth Miles’ picture
 is missing in this photograph)
This patio is entirely submerged in water now.

Our Sisters in New Orleans had planned on making their monthly retreat on the last Sunday of the month, August  28^th, our usual custom but at the last minute, God had another Plan.... On Saturday, August 27^th, the mayor of New Orleans , C. Ray Nagin, mandated all residents of the New Orleans City  to evacuate due to the Katrina hurricane that had been upgraded to Category 5. It was in rapid intensification and headed directly for New Orleans, making landfall as a Category 4 Hurricane with winds of 140 mph at 6:00 A.M. Monday morning, Aug. 29^th. The force of the sustained winds were strengthening to 175 mph (Km/h) and now believed to have been the worst catastrophe in the country’s history.

After talking with Mother Provincial by phone, Mother Silvia called the Sisters together on Sunday morning to find out how they felt about the situation. Their wish was that all could evacuate but this was not possible since there were 18 Sisters in the Community and only two cars were available and it was too late to try to find someone they knew who could provide transportation. So six sisters decided to evacuate and twelve stayed on in the convent.

Without  a moment’s  lost and taking only the absolute necessary, Sister Magdalena Quintero,  Sister Teresa Miranda, Sister Ester Irizarry, Sister Margarita Rico, Sister Isabel Gutierrez and  Sister Elizabeth Miles, departed from the Community at 11:00 in the morning in one of the cars, and headed for Baton Rouge, taking 7 hours to get to the capitol of Louisiana, which normally takes only an hour and a half. There they stayed with some Franciscan Sisters who care for a hospital and nursing home for the elderly.

Instead of making their retreat, our Sisters in New Orleans began preparing for what could happen the following day.  They began taking things upstairs to the second floor, especially all that was valuable in the Chapel and from the offices of the  Secretary and Treasurer.  The Sisters trusted that they would be safe, since the convent is well built and solid and  is located on an area higher that the rest of the neighboring homes. On other  occasions, even though the water had risen in the city, and the garden and front of the convent had flooded, it had never reached the inside of the convent. They also wanted to make sure that they had a way to get out of the convent if the water did enter the convent so they checked the  window in the ceiling of the laundry on the second floor and thanks be to God, they saw that they would be able to go up  the ladder and out onto the roof in case of an emergency.

(Photo: the window that leads out onto the roof of the convent and
was used by the Sisters to signal to the helicopter and ask for help).

By Sunday afternoon it began to rain a little with strong winds that could be felt through the windows. For security’s sake, they Sisters preferred to bring the mattresses out of their rooms and place them in the hallway on the second floor. They slept very little that night due to the intensity and strength of the wind that was accelerating as the night passed.   Monday morning, just as predicted, the hurricane passed through the city of New Orleans with winds up to 125 a 200 mph, causing devastating destruction, breakage of windows in the building, roofs of the houses, uprooting trees and light posts, etc.  The disaster was immense and the city and surrounding areas was left without electricity, water, or any means of communication. In the midst of all this damage, our Sisters, thanks be to God were OK,.  The convent was for the moment intact.

Around 11:00 a.m. , seeing that the wind had calmed down and everything was apparently quiet, the Sisters went down to the First floor, believing like the majority of people, that the worst of the hurricane was over.  They went first to the Chapel and prayed the Prayer of Praise to the Blessed Trinity and then to the Refectory to eat.  They were calmly eating when at about  12:00 in the afternoon  they began to see water  entering the convent and they did not know from where it was coming. It seemed to be coming in from the floor, even though it wasn’t  raining.  The cause was Lake Pontchartrain which was overflowing due to several breeches in the levees protecting New Orleans. This tragedy, although they never believed it would never happen was not in reality a surprise, since it has been forecasted  for many years. New Orleans is beneath sea level and surrounded by water on all sides: the Gulf of Mexico to the south,  Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the east. The danger was always there and it was known but no one thought it would really happen until now, when reality struck, resulting in catastrophic flood damage!

(Photo: Here the Sisters had the Blessed Sacrament
 and the  Reliquary of Mother Soledad) 

When the Sisters saw that the water was rising, they quickly started taking more things upstairs.  They brought up the Blessed Sacrament and the Tabernacle which is used for Holy Thursday, placing it in one of the rooms upstairs.  It was our Lord, His Eucharistic presence, that we believe maintained them in peace during these days. Jesus, in the Blessed Sacrament accompanied them until the last moment and in Him they found their strength and peace to handle this situation, placing  all their confidence in Him.

( Photo: Sister Lourdes García taking things up to the second floor)

They were able to take up sufficient water and food, not knowing how long this was going to go on. Fearing that the pipes would be damaged and the toilets wouldn’t work and that they wouldn’t have water, they filled the bathtubs and sinks with water for the toilets and to take a sponge bath.  They even thought to eat and drink as little as possible in order to use less the toilets.  Without air conditioning and the temperature 100 degrees F the environment was very hot and uncomfortable and getting worse by the minute.   The 25,000 people who found refuge in the Superdome were suffering terribly without air conditioning, without ventilation and with no bathrooms. At least our sisters, being in the convent, did not have to experience this, and at least they could open the windows, go up to the roof, and although hot, they could breathe better.

( Photo: the refectory when the water began to rise) 

Mother Silvia kept in touch with Mother Provincial as long as the cellular phone worked. The calls to New Orleans could not enter in but Mother Silvia could communicate if she went up to the roof of the convent.

On Monday Sister Lourdes Lara left to rescue a elderly couple, who lived in a neighboring house with only one floor and filled to the top with water. Thanks be to God that they were OK with the Sister’s help.                                                
(The Chapel with the pews floating in the water)

By Monday night the first floor of the convent was pretty much flooded and the water continued to rise. Mother Silvia had called the New Orleans Police department asking for help and giving them all the information concerning how many they were and where they were at. The sisters continued to go up on the roof and make signals to the helicopters and it seemed they saw them but no attempt was ever made to rescue them, maybe because they saw that they were safe on the second floor and other  people were in worse conditions with only one floor and who needed urgent attention.  

Our Sisters did not stop trying to call for help to the helicopters, thinking also about the elderly couple and with them was also Sister Margarita Rivera, who is 87 years old. They could also hear  screams of the people who were calling for help all around them.  It was a desperate sensation, listening to the screams of the people calling for help and not being able to do anything.  For this reason, with the hope that someone would see them, they wrote a big sign with shoe polish saying, “water and food”.  Meanwhile Mother Provincial was trying her utmost to look for help and also our Sisters in Baton Rouge and Kansas.

After Tuesday morning we did not know anything more about the Sisters.  The last thing that Mother Silvia had said was that they were all OK but that the water continued to rise.  As the day passed we were very worried but in our hearts we trusted in God and Our Lady that they would be taken care of.  This Tuesday the Sisters heard three young men crying out for help.  They had crawled up on the roof of a building that was a Protestant church abandoned which was on the corner of the street next to the convent. They looked very hungry and exhausted.  They asked the Sisters if they had any water and food and the Sisters told them yes .  These young men, even though very tired, swam  a little bit more and reached the roof of the part of the kitchen of the convent and from there to the roof of the convent which was very hot and burnt their feet.  Thinking that the Sisters could help them, they threw some sandals and sheets to them so that they wouldn’t feel the heat as they tried to help them enter into the convent.    

(Photo: a portion of the garden behind the convent and in the corner
of the garage entirely covered with water where the three young
men came and tried to climb over into the convent.)

One of the three boys was quite thin and able to enter by slipping through  the grills of the windows of one of the bedrooms, but the other two could not fit through.  With the help of a ladder they climbed up onto the roof and entered into the house.  Once in the Sisters gave them food and let them rest in one of the bedrooms.  Their house had been flooded and they had tried to get up on top of the roof but this fell down and they just began to swim.  Hungry and thirsty they tried to search for food and water, and so they spent  the whole day and night, from Monday until Tuesday morning, swimming from roof to roof until they arrived to where the Sisters were.

After resting, these young men began to look for help for the Sisters.  As soon as they heard any boat or helicopter pass by, they would run to the windows or up on the roof, and yell with all they strength for help.  Thanks to these three young men, a boat heard them and came near the convent.  It was too little to take all of them and the Sisters did not want to separate from one another. So they took the elderly couple and two of the young men.  The men in the boat promised to return with more boats so that they could take them all together.  One of them wanted to stay with the Sisters in order to help them when they returned for them.

(Patio with the statue of the Blessed  Virgin.
On the first day you could still see the statue of our Lady of Lourdes.)

 
Here it is totally covered by water in the patio with the statue of our Lady.

(Photo: Rescue of the Sisters.  Going out of the terrace on
the side of the choir loft of the Chapel)

As they waited for them to return and rescue  them, they began to prepare to evacuate.  Until now  they had been pretty serene and calm but realizing that they had to definitively leave the convent brought on deep emotions and in these circumstances, it was the most painful moment for the Sisters.... .

It was impossible not to get emotional.  But even in these painful circumstances there was so much to be grateful for, for having our Lord with them present in the Blessed Sacrament and having received Holy Communion everyday; also for the three young men who helped them be rescued; for the boats that came and were not even part of the team that was rescuing people, but simple men who had their houses in Lafayette and Texas and had decided to come out in their boat and see if they could help in any way, trying to find any survivors and help them leave New Orleans.

What our Lord asked the sisters was a total detachment.  They could not take anything with them, only what they had on and nothing more.  This is how they rowed off.  They took them out of a window near the choir loft of the Chapel that has a little terrace.  These boats carried them to a certain place where they exchanged for another boat  that was bigger since the water was deeper.  Two hours and a half to three it took to arrive to dry land, not so much for the distance that they had to cross over but for the trees and electrical lines that were down and it made it very difficult to advance on the water.

Once on land, it was painfully impressive to all of them to see thousands of people waiting for a bus to take them out of New Orleans, but there were not sufficient buses for so many people.  On arrival, the Sisters thought that they too would have to wait the same, but it didn’t turn out like this.  When the people saw them they showed great charity towards them and not knowing how, after an hour, they were getting onto a bus with Rev. Father Hermes and Father O’Neil, S.J. who were chaplains for the sisters in New Orleans.  There were also some Brothers from their Community but they had to wait for another bus.

Another of the many  blessings  received was that this bus could take the sisters  to wherever the place they needed to evacuate to, and thanks be to God they were able to reach Baton Rouge, where the rest of the Sisters were. They left them in the LSU Arena, which was being used as a place of refuge for the people.  Thanks be to God that Father Hermes never left them alone and there they came upon a Physician who was a friend of his, with two of his children and a nephew who took the sisters to the hospital run by the Franciscan Sisters and so they could be united once again with the rest of the Community in New Orleans.

          We are convinced that all was due to so many  prayers and everything happened just as Jesus has assured us, for He tells us that “where two or three are gathered  together in My name, there am I in your midst” and whatever we ask the Father for in His name, it will be granted us.    The sisters had been trapped for three days on the second floor of the convent.   They were  safe now  but the suffering was unavoidable.   We did not know anything about them.  We placed our faith only in God and had recourse to Him day and night.  On Wednesday Mother Provincial asked us to all pray before Jesus exposed  in the Blessed Sacrament,  praying for our Sisters and all the people of New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama. While we were praying before our Lord, the Sisters were being rescued in New Orleans.  Mother Provincial received a call from Mother Silvia at 6:00 P.M. telling her that they were safe in Baton Rouge and all were well.  This news really filled our hearts with great joy!  We thank God that they are safe and sound! 

 
(The Sisters  arrive at the Los Angeles Airport)

          Taking into consideration the Sister’s situation, we looked for the best possible solution for everyone and at the same time to keep watch over  the convent in New Orleans, so Mother Silvia Juarez, Sister Magdalena Quintero, the assistant and Sister Lourdes Lara, the Treasurer have remained in Baton Rouge while the other 15 Sisters left for California on Sunday, September 4th , to be distributed among our three communities there. Sr. Teresa Miranda, Sr. Fátima  Zapata, Sr. Margarita Rico, Sr. Lidia Ortiz and  Sr. Alicia Ríos remained in Los Angeles; to  Newbury Park went Sr. Ester Irizarry, Sr. Isabel Gutiérrez, Sr. Silvia Gurrusquieta and Sr. Elizabeth Miles.  To Oxnard went, Sr. Margarita Rivera, Sr. Gabriela Gallego, Sr. Gloria Irizarry, Sr. Cecilia López, Sr. Claudia Zamora and Sr. Lourdes García.

          We were 12 Sisters who went to the airport to receive our Sisters and when we greeted them, it was quite emotional and with tremendous joy.

(Greeting the Sisters in the L.A. Airport)

          After hugging them all, we left for the Community in Los Angeles in order to participate in the celebration of the Sunday Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist, Offering Mass in thanksgiving for our Sister’s  rescue and for having them once again with us, safe and alive.

 
(Photo: Holy Mass in thanksgiving which was celebrated in the
 Community of Los Angeles)

          Our Sisters gave us a warm welcome, including a delicious supper in which we all enjoyed immensely the food and hospitality and for which we are most grateful.

(Photo: In the refectory, enjoying together a delicious
supper offered to our Sisters from  New Orleans)

          We cannot forget  to mention the generosity of so many people who have been helping our sisters in numerous ways. Divine Providence has been showered down upon us from the start by many people.  We have been receiving constantly many donations from people when they heard about our Sisters and wanted to help in whatever way they could.  May our Lord bless and reward each one of them in their great concern for us and in their generosity .

          Our hearts are overflowing with joy and gratitude for having our sisters alive and knowing that they are well, but we feel great pain at the sight of so many of our  bothers and sisters who have lost everything.  We continue  to feel this sorrow, especially for those who have lost their beloved ones.  We have  received many calls from close and dear friends in New Orleans asking about our Sisters.   Each of their calls is also a joy to us in knowing  that they too have survived and are OK, even though there are many that we do not know anything about.  For all we raise a special prayer to our Lord so that He may be their consolation, their strength and their hope.
 
          It is very inspiring and a joy to see the Sisters express their desire to return once again to New Orleans, eager to help and to continue our mission with the sick, even though they too have experienced some very traumatic experiences. We continue to unite our prayers together, asking  for God’ grace that soon we may be able to rebuild this dear city of New Orleans, through the help of the government and the generous efforts of so many people who are working as volunteers for those affected by the hurricane, and that we may soon be once again in our ministry to caring for the poor and sick in New Orleans.  May our Blessed Mother be always near us as we wait for this challenge.

          It has been so consoling for us to see the genuine concern of the whole Congregation in these days of deep anguish and insecurity.  We have felt the closeness, love and unity of all, from our Mother General down to the last postulant and aspirant of the Congregation.  As our sisters who lived this tragic experience tell us, only the prayers of the whole Congregation sustained them in those moments, and without doubt, our Lord sent Guardian angels to rescue them from that devastating situation which existed in the city.  We know that the rescue teams could  not attend to all the calls that were coming in at the same time.
 
          Our deepest gratitude goes  to all and each one of you  that have remained so close to us.  We continue united in prayer for those still living in the City of New Orleans  that so desperately need our help.  We shall always remain grateful for your closeness and prayers.

A.M.G.D.