Like other Southern expatriates, Daynel Hooker and Marcelle Johnson have been agonizing over missing loved ones in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“The biggest issue I’m struggling with, on an emotional level, is I feel more helpless than I have ever felt in my life,” said Hooker, a Denver attorney who hasn’t had contact with her grandfather and an aunt. “I can’t get on a plane and go home. There is no home to go to.”
Since Katrina hit, Hooker has gotten little sleep. Before and after work, Hooker is glued to television news as she alternates between crying and praying.
Her grandfather, 82-year-old Oscar Singleton, lives in New Orleans’ 9th Ward, one of the areas that has been submerged in deep water.
Beyond relatives, Hooker worries over the fate of her hometown.
“All I can do is continue to pray and wait,” she said.
Johnson, a real-estate agent who has lived in Denver since 1998, is missing four sets of aunts and uncles and four cousins.
“It is very unsettling not knowing what has happened to your family,” she said.
Part of one family branch is missing from a Gulfport, Miss., home near a string of casinos that were hard hit by the storm.
“Obviously, that whole area is gone. We’ve seen it on TV,” Johnson said.
Her aunt, Cecile Stroecker, may have fled in a pickup, Johnson said, but extended family members haven’t heard from her.
“Most people wouldn’t have a house phone anymore, but having the cell towers down is just crazy,” Johnson said.
In Slidell, La., the day Katrina hit, Johnson’s cousin, Tom Coate, drove his two young daughters to a bus station seeking better shelter than his home provided. Family members haven’t heard from him since.
Johnson served in the Louisiana National Guard for six years, including a tour during Desert Storm in which the Army notified her parents that she was missing in action, she said.
That experience has tempered her sense of hope.
“A lot of people are not missing, they just don’t have access to phones,” Johnson said. “It’s important for everyone to understand not to give up hope. We are all trying to keep our hopes up.”
Even Coloradans who don’t have family connections to the affected area are trying to help.
Jennifer Andrew of Colorado Springs posted a message on the New Orleans Craigslist.com. She offered to help people affected by the hurricane contact friends and loved ones, alerting them that they are OK.
Earlier in the day, she donated money to relief efforts – even though the single mother of two children is between jobs.
“I don’t know why someone could not want to help these people,” she said. “How can someone wake up one day and see that their whole town is gone? These people have nothing now.
“I just hope I can help one person.”
Denver Post staff writer Robert Sanchez contributed to this report.
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-820-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
