Victims turn to their families in area
A librarian
Diane Turner-Ford taught second grade in McLouth from 1986 to 1994. This week she has helped her parents, Pete and Lucy Turner, sift through rubble of their home in Pascagoula, Miss., which Hurricane Katrina destroyed.
Turner-Ford is now a librarian at Lincoln Park Elementary in Pensacola, Fla. She and her parents waited out the hurricane on Sunday at her Florida home before returning to her parents’ Mississippi city of about 26,000, which is 28 miles east of Biloxi, Miss.
Two days of trying to find any possessions to salvage from her parents’ home of 31 years has taken a toll, she said.
“The people, their hearts have just been ripped out,” Turner-Ford said.
At her Florida home, she is also now housing her sister and other relatives. She said she hopes the relief effort can bring the country together.
“It’s just so surreal to me,” Turner-Ford said.
Turner-Ford’s son, Mike Ford, of Bonner Springs, contacted the Journal-World on Friday. He said he has several other relatives in the New Orleans area.
Looking to hear anything
Rena and Jerry Evans evacuated their home of Hammond, La., on Sunday before Hurricane Katrina hit. Since Monday they have stayed with Rena’s sister, Johnita Jones, in Lawrence.
“We don’t know whether we still have a home or not,” Rena said.
Now they are trying to find out any information they can about their daughter, Ginger Perryman, and son, Darrell Imbronone. Rena said they lived near New Orleans, and she heard that they didn’t evacuate. Rena and Jerry have been unable to contact them.
Jerry’s sister, Barbara Roddy, 72, was living in a nursing home in Marrero, La., a suburb of New Orleans. Jerry said he heard that she was taken to the Superdome. He has no additional information.
The couple do not know when they can leave Lawrence and return to Hammond, La., which is about 50 miles northwest of New Orleans.
“It’s killing me. That’s my home. We’re just trying to find out any information,” Jerry said.