Former Wiltonians recount their escape from Katrina

by Julie Weisberg - September 15, 2005

George and Carolyn Lenz. —Julie Weisberg photo

After the heavy winds and rain of Hurricane Katrina blew out of New Orleans the evening of Monday, Aug. 29, many of the city’s residents let out a sigh of relief — including longtime former Wilton residents George and Carolyn Lenz who had been living in the city for the past two years.

But less than 24 hours after the storm hit, the couple, along with Mrs. Lenz’s 98-year-old mother, found themselves trapped in their apartment complex surrounded by several feet of flood water that had poured into the city after two of the levees broke at nearby Lake Pontchartrain.

And it would take the family several days to finally find their way out of the city, away from the increasingly putrid flood waters that surrounded them and most of the region.

“When the storm was through, we were fine,” Ms. Lenz said. “It wasn’t until the two levees broke that the water started coming in — and then there was a problem.”

Mrs. Lenz, along with her mother Magdalen Fynn, is a Louisiana native who spent most of her time as a youth growing up and going to school, including college, in New Orleans. After moving back to the city with her husband — who now teaches math at the University of New Orleans and Tulane University — two years ago to help look after her aging parents, she said it is difficult to see how devastated the region has become in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina.

“It was just devastating to look out and see the flooded city,” Ms. Lenz said.

The Lenzes, who had lived more than 38 years in Wilton before moving down to New Orleans, said they began preparing for the hurricane a few days before weather forecasters had predicted it would make landfall along the Gulf Coast. They stocked up on plenty of food and water, and just before the hurricane hit, they brought Ms. Lenz’s 98-year-old mother to their fourth floor apartment from her house near Lake Pontchartrain itself.

“We brought my mother to our apartment because we knew she would be high and dry there on the fourth floor, and we had been through lots of hurricanes, and usually it’s not a problem,” Ms. Lenz said of their location.

After the storm blew through that Monday, Mrs. Lenz said the family was relieved. But then a short time later the flood waters from the lake began to seep into the city, and the couple quickly realized that it was going to take them some time to get out of the city.

“Most of the city was flooded, and it was interesting because parts of the city that never flood were flooded and the parts of the city that usually flood, didn’t,” she said. “And this was one of the problems in getting buses to people, because they parked buses in areas that they thought would not get flooded.”

Deciding to try to wait it out to see if the flood waters would recede, for the next several days the Lenzes banded together with the other remaining residents of their apartment complex to help keep each other healthy and safe.

In the meantime. Mr. Lenz said the building’s manager would go up onto the roof in the early morning hours in an attempt to contact rescue officials to let them know that there were residents living in the building.

“I don’t know if we would have been rescued if it wasn’t for her,” he said.

Mrs. Lenz said there was a restaurant and a store located within the complex, and even though the city was without electricity, the restaurant’s owner had a generator he would use to cook the cafeteria-style meals each day to keep the group from going hungry.

In addition, each floor of the building had a “floor captain” that was charged with knocking on doors during the day to regularly check up on residents, making sure they were OK.

“So for four days we were fine,” she said, adding that about 170 of the building’s 400 residents remained after the hurricane. “The apartments became like a small village making sure everyone was taken care of.”

But after it became apparent that it might be sometime for the flood waters to recede, small groups of two began evacuating from the building, paddling a small boat from the complex’s lobby to a dry nearby bridge. At the bridge, a small van would pick up residents, driving them to City Park where they would then be evacuated out of the city by a helicopter. The copter then flew residents to the New Orleans airport where thousands of other people were already waiting for flights out of the city to destinations unknown.

Mrs. Lenz said the first evacuees who were paddled out of the building were the sick and frail, many of them elderly. Unfortunately, one of the couple’s neighbors, an older man, died on the way in the boat, possibly overcome by the stress and exhaustion of the situation. The group brought him back to the building where they wrapped him up in cloths, placing a carefully folded American flag on his body.

“It was very sad,” she said quietly.

Then, on Friday, Sept. 2, the Lenzes were told if they wanted to get out of the city, they would have to do so that day, as there would be no more helicopters coming to the park to evacuate storm victims. So, the couple made the decision to leave with Mrs. Lenz’s mother, and the small group was ferried to the bridge from their apartment on one of the last runs the boat made that Friday.

“It wasn’t one of the big bridges but it was enough,” Mr. Lenz said.

Hoping to find some much needed relief at the New Orleans airport, instead the Lenzs said they found an area overrun by thousands of desperate and impatient people — many of them sick, injured, or dying — waiting to get on a plane out of the city.

And, while there were National Guardsmen and a few members of the local police force doing their best to keep order, Mr. Lenz said there was no federal presence at that time at the airport from which they could take direction.

“No one was in charge,” he said.

The family waited in line for a flight for more than 10 hours, with one person standing in line and the other sitting and taking care of Ms. Fynn.

“I went up to three or four people standing around with badges on their arms, and they said to me, ‘We don’t know anything’,” Mrs. Lenz said.

Finally, a man came up to Mrs. Lenz, and offered to allow the family to join the separate line for the handicapped and sick evacuees, as her mother was becoming increasingly exhausted by the trying ordeal. After about an hour, they were able to board a plane out of New Orleans late Saturday afternoon.

“I called him one of my guardian angels,” she said.

The plane, a civilian Delta Airlines carrier, landed at the airport in Fort Smith, Ark. From there, the family was taken by bus to Fort Chaffee only a few miles down the road.

“And it appeared that we were the first ones to arrive,” Mr. Lenz said of the relief camp at the base.

But a short time later, one of the local residents who had been volunteering at the camp told the Lenzes that soon there could be up to 30,000 evacuees at the fort, which would quickly deteriorate the relief camp’s conditions.

So, the local man helped transport the Lenzes out of the camp to a nearby motel, where the couple was able to get their bearings, a proper meal, and a good night’s rest. In fact, Mrs. Lenz said their friend even brought the three a milkshake from a local fast-food restaurant as a goodwill gesture.

“He said, you need something cold to eat,” Mr. Lenz said with a chuckle.

Finally, a week after the storm had hit New Orleans, the family drove out of Arkansas in their rental car, driving across much of the country and all the way back to their son and daughter-in-law’s house on Blue Ridge Lane, where the three evacuees have been staying since the middle of last week.

And while the three are thankful that they arrived in Wilton safe and sound, they all would like to return to live in New Orleans. But with much of the city still flooded, and without fresh water and power, it could be some time before they can return.

In the meantime, they plan to stay at their son’s Blue Ridge Lane home, recuperating and regrouping for a return to the city.

Mrs. Fynn, whose home is only a handful of blocks away from Lake Pontchartrain, is hopeful her city on the bayou will soon reclaim its unique southern charm and the hospitality it is famous for.

“I want to go home,” she said softly.