From Dallas, Orlita Marie Palmer listened in shock to news reports as Hurricane Katrina rammed the Central Gulf Coast.
Like most everyone else, she didn’t expect her neighborhood in Marrero, across the river from New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, would be flooded.
Three weeks later, Orlita, 4-year-old daughter Ajayle, fiancé Bryan Farrell Sr., and their 8-year-old son, Bryan Jr., returned to find their dishes, clothes, furniture, photographs and everything else transformed into mangled, smashed heaps. Nothing was salvageable.
Her Honda Civic, still parked outside, reeked of moldy sewage. The seats were still soggy. When Orlita tried to start the engine, it sputtered muddy water.
The couple surveyed the damage to their apartment, their neighborhood, their city, and decided they were better off leaving.
They got back into Bryan’s GMC Envoy and drove northwest until they got to his cousin’s house in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood. They’ve since moved into their own apartment in Aurora.
Katrina may have wrecked the life she knew, but Orlita, who is 25, isn’t letting it derail her plan to become a nurse.
On Thursday, though her extended family wasn’t with her at Thanksgiving dinner (and there was no gumbo), Orlita thought about those who didn’t make it out alive.
“I thank the Lord that we are all safe,” Orlita said.
She says some days she feels depressed and overwhelmed by what happened, but then she tells herself to snap out of it.
If anything, Katrina instilled even further in Orlita a desire to help sick people.
It was several years ago, while caring for her grandfather, who was dying of cancer, that she decided to become a nurse. She would massage his feet and feed him. Seeing him smile made her feel like she had a knack for caring for those who are ill.
“I have a passion for it,” Orlita told me. “I feel good when I am able to help a person feel better.”
Orlita took her first step when she enrolled at the Community College of Aurora. Even though she was weeks behind the other students, she said she wanted to get herself into a studying mind-set. She’s taking a biology class that she plans to take again next semester to ensure a better chance of getting an A, along with other prerequisites: anatomy and physiology.
A state education fund set up for Katrina survivors for this year is paying for whatever federal financial aid doesn’t pick up.
In a year, she should be eligible to enroll in a two-year program to become a registered nurse. (Her fiancé is working and attending welding school.)
Linda Bowman, the president of the college, said Orlita chose a smart career: there’s a demand for RNs, which will only increase as baby boomers get older.
“You can get a job just like that,” Bowman said, snapping her fingers. She said RNs in the Denver area typically start at $50,000 a year.
Orlita had been taking classes toward a licensed practical nurse degree (a step down from an RN) at A&W Health Care Educators in New Orleans while working as a phlebotomist at a hospital. She called her boss on Saturday, Aug. 27, to tell her she would not make it into work that Sunday because she was told to evacuate.
That Monday, at 6:10 a.m., Katrina hit Buras, La., and within two hours most of the Lower Ninth Ward was submerged.
She misses her co-workers, many of whom are probably displaced. She wants to make new friends but knows that will come in time, as will that nursing degree.
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays in Scene. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
