Even with Hurricane Katrina bearing down, 1996 Marietta High School graduate Lisa George didn't plan on leaving New Orleans.
But her sister, Lindsey, who had moved to the Big Easy with her in the previous December, convinced her to go. The sisters left just before midnight on Aug. 27, 2005.
Two days later, the infamous hurricane broke New Orleans' levees, flooded 80 percent of the city and swept inland on the Mississippi.
Lisa George had been living in the Crescent City since the summer of 2004, after getting a teaching position at Hoffman Elementary School through Teach Greater New Orleans and the University of New Orleans. In the wake of the hurricane, she came home to Marietta, then taught in Baytwon, Texas, for two years before returning to a rebuilding New Orleans.
Last month, George began a job in Greensboro, N.C., in an effort to be closer to home while still avoiding the Valley's winters. But New Orleans remains a part of her.
Question: After you left in 2005, what were you thinking when you saw what was going on back in New Orleans?
Answer: We (Lindsey and I) were both crying. The TV with the great big, red storm right over top of New Orleans. My main thought, a lot of my students, I knew they had not evacuated. And some of my friends, I wasn't sure if they had gotten out or not.
Q: How long was it until you found out about them?
A: Some of them it was quite a while. The cell phones weren't working right away ... it took about a week before they were working.
Some of my students I went (online) and put missing persons notices on if I knew their addresses and put my parents' number for a contact. The ones I knew hadn't evacuated, I put their home address on so the boaters would go by and check and make sure that they weren't on the roof or anything.
I left about a week after Katrina, I left Marietta to go down to Texas and see if I could find any of the kids.
Q: When you went to Texas, what did you find?
A: When I hit Dallas, my sister called me, and she told me one of the kids and called and she told me the shelter he was in. ... I had to register to be able to go in and check for him. They kept telling me he wasn't registered, he wasn't registered, because they had him registered incorrectly. Finally they ended up paging him, and he and his dad came (out).
Q: How did you feel to find him and see him safe and sound?
A: I was really excited. ... And at the time, when I was registering, my sister called back and said (the student's) older brother had called. They ended up in Arkansas; they had been separated. That was cool because they didn't know where the other kids were.
Transition
George worked to help the student and his siblings get placed in schools. The family got moved to an apartment in Baytown, Texas, where George heard there was a job opening at the elementary school. She submitted her resume and was hired.
Q: What made you to decide to apply for the job in Baytown?
A: I needed a job. They (her previous school) had to send us a letter saying, "Oh, by the way, you're all fired because we don't have a school anymore." I figured it was a job and I wasn't guaranteed one anywhere else.
Q: When did you return to New Orleans after Katrina hit? What was it like?
A: It was around a month later, as soon as they opened it up to people coming back, I went down to see what was going on. And it was... it was a mess. There was a big lot less than a mile away from my house piled about 50 feet high with trash. And the whole place smelled really bad, like mold.
My apartment, I was really lucky, it was on the second floor. Most of my stuff was OK, but I ended up losing most, all of my furniture because the mold had spread. ... I ended up having to throw (my clothes) away. I took them home and washed them and a lot of them I couldn't get the smell out of.
It was just a sickly sweet smell over the whole city.
Back to New Orleans
George wanted to go back to New Orleans and got the opportunity about two years later, when she applied for a job and was placed at Carver Elementary in the 9th Ward. The modular units that would compose the school weren't finished in time for the start of the school year, so classes were held at a former Catholic school until October.
Q: What challenges did you face as a teacher in the wake of Katrina?
A: I worked with special education and we had a lot of kids come in with no records, misplaced records, half complete records, very little support. The school was really rough for about the first two years I was there. We went through three principals. The third principal, she's still at the school this year. She's great. ... Before that we had a ... lack of leadership and not a lot of support from the district ... not through lack of trying for the district but lack of resources.
A lot of kids hadn't been to school since Katrina so they were two or three years behind.
Q: Did New Orleans ever feel like it had before Katrina struck?
A: I'd say it's getting there. It depends on what area you're in. I actually ended up moving to Uptown after six months. ... That area is pretty much back to normal, but if you got out to like the lower 9th Ward or Lakeview ... there's still a lot of empty houses and vacant lots.
The people, they're pretty much a lot the same. They still have the open attitude that just makes New Orleans a great place. You can walk up the street and people will talk to you. Whatever you want to be, they're willing to accept you.
Q: What's the future of New Orleans look like to you?
A: I miss New Orleans already. I've only been gone about a month. I don't know how to describe (what it's like to live there) if you haven't lived there for a while.
New Orleans is definitely making steps in the right direction. There's still way too much violence and I don't know how they can curb that because it's so ingrained. The school that I worked at, I saw a lot of improvement over the three years that I was there. I think it's going to do OK. As long as the levies hold for the next hurricane.
