On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast and turned toward New Orleans. Millions of people streamed west on I-10 in a desperate attempt to escape. Thousands stayed behind, soon to learn that Lake Pontchartrain’s levees would not hold.
That morning, I found myself driving the opposite direction. My Ford Explorer was the only civilian car in a caravan of Red Cross vans, power company trucks, and tree crews pushing east into Louisiana. As the world fled, I was heading into one of the most life-changing experiences of my life.
I didn’t know it then, but Katrina would permanently change the way I saw business, government, charity, and community.
Reality Sinks In
Halfway between Houston and Baton Rouge, it hit me: I was literally the only non-emergency vehicle heading east.
At the time, I ran a corporate housing business providing fully furnished apartments to relocating families and business travelers. Hurricanes, as grim as it sounds, created demand for my work. My mission was simple—get close to New Orleans, secure apartments, and prepare to house whoever needed them.
But as I neared Baton Rouge, that frame cracked. Downed trees, powerless towns, families sleeping in parking lots, and cars abandoned along the roadside told me this wasn’t just a housing crisis. It was a humanitarian one.
I wasn’t driving toward opportunity. I was driving into a refugee camp.
The First 48 Hours
Phones were down. Power was out. The internet was primitive compared to today. If you wanted an apartment, you had to physically stand in the office doorway with a check in hand.
I hustled from property to property, eventually securing about 200 units across Baton Rouge. I never made it closer to New Orleans—Louisiana State Troopers had blocked every southern route, and they weren’t amused by my attempts to find side streets around their barricades.
For food and shelter, I lived out of my Explorer, subsisting on peanut butter, granola bars, and bottled water I had packed in advance. Nights were spent in the back of the SUV until I found a vacant apartment with power. On day six, I finally secured a hotel room.
Those first two days were pure adrenaline. Just survive, secure housing, keep moving.
“First Responders” Arrive
By the time FEMA buses rolled up to Baton Rouge—five full days after landfall—I had already been living, working, and sleeping in Louisiana for nearly a week.
Watching them step off those buses, freshly arrived, I felt a deep disdain for their tardiness. Families had been going hungry. McDonald’s had run out of everything but hamburgers. And only then did our “first responders” show up?
That moment forced me to wrestle with an uncomfortable truth: help doesn’t always arrive when people need it most.
The Good
But Katrina wasn’t only about loss and failure. I also saw the best of humanity.
At Wal-Mart, I watched families invite complete strangers—people with nowhere to sleep—into their homes. Neighbors became hosts. Strangers became family. It was God’s love in action.
Back home in Dallas, my two boys (then just 5 and 3) and their baseball teammates set up a lemonade stand. With help from families at the fields, they raised over $2,000 for the Red Cross in a single day. My employer matched every dollar. It reminded me that compassion, even in small doses, adds up to something powerful.
The Bad
I also saw the darker side. Looting. Neighbors screaming at each other over gas lines. Children crying in the sweltering Louisiana heat. And perhaps most disheartening of all: a woman cashing her FEMA relief check at a casino cage the same week families were still living in cars.
The storm didn’t just break levees; it exposed cracks in our humanity.
The Indifferent
What surprised me most wasn’t what I saw in Louisiana—it was what I felt when I got home.
Returning to Dallas after a week of devastation, I felt resentment toward people who could go about their day like nothing had happened. At a church donation drive, I caught myself judging the “soccer moms” who dropped off a token case of water without even hanging up their cell phones.
I realize now they were doing what they could. But at the time, I carried survivor’s guilt, like a veteran back from deployment. I felt I should go back. That I wasn’t doing enough.
Lessons That Stayed With Me
I spent the next two years helping house over 100 families displaced from ExxonMobil’s St. George Parish refinery and more than 70 FEMA staff coordinating long-term recovery.
Say what you will about “Big Oil,” but I personally watched ExxonMobil take extraordinary care of its people: housing families, busing employees, and creating a makeshift city to keep their community afloat. To this day, I’ll choose their gas station when I have the option.
And my favorite memory? Two weeks after the storm, a truck full of TVs rolled into Baton Rouge. For days, we’d been delivering furniture and kitchenware to families. But when those kids—displaced, weary, still living in borrowed apartments—saw televisions, they danced and sang with joy.
It was a small, almost absurd symbol. But it was also a turning point. Normalcy, however fragile, was returning.
Twenty Years Later
It’s been twenty years since Katrina reshaped the Gulf Coast—and reshaped me.
I still remember the disdain I felt watching official “first responders” arrive days late, long after neighbors, businesses, and churches had already stepped into the gap. It was a hard lesson: in moments of crisis, the real first responders are often the people standing right next to you.
I also remember the small but powerful glimpses of hope—families in Wal-Mart inviting strangers into their homes, my young sons raising thousands for the Red Cross with nothing more than a lemonade stand, displaced children erupting with joy when a truckload of TVs finally arrived.
Katrina taught me that disasters expose cracks in our systems, but they also reveal the resilience and compassion woven into our communities. Help from institutions may be slow, but help from neighbors is immediate—and often life-changing.
Most of all, I learned that even in chaos, hope has a way of showing up. Sometimes it looks like a borrowed bed. Sometimes it looks like a lemonade stand. And sometimes, it looks like kids dancing in front of a truck full of TVs.