TYLER, Texas — It's been 17 years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans. It changed the lives of some 250,000 people who were evacuated and those that stayed behind.
East Texas also felt an impact, with many people coming here to seek shelter. A New Orleans native and Katrina evacuee looks back at how the hurricane changed her life.
“I don’t even remember that it’s August the 29, even though that’s the day when my life changed 17 years ago,” Dr. Pamela Phoenix said.
Dr. Phoenix never envisioned leaving her hometown, when the National Weather Service reported the storm as a category 3 hurricane. She says she, like many, didn't think the storm would have such a significant impact.
“There was no panicking, I was not going to leave home, I did not want to go through all the rigmarole of packing up going trying to find hotel space,” Phoenix said. "But my mom says she spoke with my sister and they said we need to do something.”
Phoenix and her family decided to stay at a hotel on the west side of New Orleans.
“I'm like, OK, let's go to the hotel, like we always do and have a hurricane party,” Phoenix added. “It’s gonna turn at the last minute and then we just go back home tomorrow.”
Phoenix’s hopes of returning home the next day later turned into a night of terror as the storm directly hit New Orleans on Monday, August 29, 2005.
“We went to sleep that night and then in the middle of the night, I started hearing the wind,” Phoenix said. “Then, I started seeing air conditioning units for the hotel, being sucked out of the windows and just flying through the air and I said, Lord, I said the hurricane must be hitting.”
The hurricane’s strength began to impact the conditions of the hotel Phoenix and her family was staying in. It became unsafe to the point hotel management asked guests to leave.
From that moment, Phoenix would set out on what would end up being a long journey to seek shelter.
“We stopped at every hotel we saw, every one of them was full,” Phoenix said. “I'm sitting here, probably looking like a homeless person with a pair of shorts and a sleeveless shirt and some tennis shoes and I've been in it for about three days.”
Phoenix and her family settled at the CajunDome in Lafayette, Louisiana, for a few days until it got overcrowded and living conditions worsened.
“We thought we had gotten somewhere we could kind of settle our minds,” Phoenix said. “They brought a busload of people from the Superdome to the CajunDome and, I mean, just chaos.”
Those days of hardship in Louisiana would later end when Phoenix received a call from her pastor, Jerry Davis Jr.
“When I spoke with him, he said 'Pamela, we're in Tyler and if you can get here you will be OK,' and I believed him,” Phoenix said. "I had never heard of Tyler, have never done long-distance driving and it almost sounded like when God told Abraham to go to a place and I'll tell you when you get there.”
After nearly a four-hour drive from Lafayette to Tyler, Phoenix was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief.
“We walked into Marvin Methodist Church’s shelter at two in the morning and kind of just fell into their arms from exhaustion,” Phoenix said. “They just loved us and I will never forget Marvin Methodist Church for that.”
The church's and the Tyler community surrounded Phoenix and her family with love and support. The outpour of grace would later lead her into making Tyler her new home.
“They treated us like we were family and we were strangers to them,” Phoenix added. “It’s a blessing when the lord allows you to go through something that appears like a tragedy but turns it around for your good."
