Katrina survivor regroups

Tina Zlotnick's story of surviving Hurricane Katrina can be as fragmented as the scattered possessions she managed to save: a few family photos...a small quilt made by a New Orleans neighbor...two winter coats in a plastic bag...an answering machine tape on which her grandchildren sing, "Happy Birthday, Nana!"

She cast her eyes around her Albany hotel room, searching for something else from her past.

"That's it," she concluded, starting to cry. "That's all I've got."

Thanksgiving

Miss Zlotnick has been trying not to think about all the memories she lost when flood waters rushed through her apartment in Orleans Parish more than two months ago.

The only reason she consented to an interview, she said, is because she hopes that, in this season of giving thanks, her comments will spur people to "find just a little bit of money and give it to Catholic Charities," the diocesan agency that's been helping her get back on her feet since she arrived in the Albany Diocese after the hurricane.

"They didn't even ask me if I was Catholic," she noted. "Everybody I've dealt with has been so kind."

New home

Miss Zlotnick is one of countless Gulf Coast residents who had no means to evacuate before Hurricane Katrina hit. She lives on disability because of back problems and osteoarthritis, and does not own a car.

She also has two dogs -- a shih tzu named Puppy and Chucky, a middleweight mutt -- and worried that she wouldn't be able to take them with her.

Seven years ago, she moved to New Orleans from the Albany Diocese (where her son, Galen; his girlfriend, Angie; and Miss Zlotnick's two granddaughters live). Not accustomed to hurricanes, she trusted that Katrina would turn away from the coast without doing much damage.

"I was clueless," she admitted, remembering photos her landlord had shown her of damage done by previous hurricanes, "so I stayed."

Flood waters

The 100-year-old house she lived in weathered the initial storm with only the loss of a few shingles. When Miss Zlotnick looked at her backyard the next day, she thought it would take months to clean up the debris, but that she'd escaped major damage.

"Within an hour or two, I noticed the water coming -- just a trickle," she said. "I hadn't been listening to the radio, so I didn't know the levee had broken."

The water rose to mid-calf, then to her waist. Miss Zlotnick knew she was about to lose everything she owned. Frantically, she grabbed a few possessions and her dogs, and took refuge on her concrete porch, the only area above water level. She would remain there for six days.

Fridge afloat

"I remember seeing my refrigerator float by," Miss Zlotnick told The Evangelist. "My landlord had just gotten it for me. I was so proud of that refrigerator. I didn't believe it could float."

Several neighbors from other apartments joined her on the porch, but their company was unwelcome. They began to steal whatever they could find from nearby stores, and demanded that she refuse all offers of rescue, essentially holding her hostage so they wouldn't get caught.

As days -- and boats -- passed by, her situation became more and more dire. Flood waters reached the top step, and gasoline from the flooded gas station across the street pooled in a huge slick around the house, the fumes making it difficult to breathe.

At night, gunshots rang out in the neighborhood; when the sun came out, the group broiled in the heat.

Desperate prayers

Miss Zlotnick said she was sure she was going to die. "Lord, I can't believe you want me to be in this," she prayed.

She remembered hearing someone's radio broadcasting the terrifying conditions at the Superdome and thinking how ironic it was that she could be marooned with criminals and surrounded by flood waters, yet still be better off than those evacuees.

When boats passed, she started to hide behind pillars on the porch to beckon them without her companions seeing her. On the sixth day, someone finally stopped, and Miss Zlotnick begged, "I need to get out of here!"

The next thing she knew, she was "crying like a baby" in a stranger's boat, pushing away other evacuees who tried to hug her because she was ashamed of not having showered or brushed her teeth in almost a week.

Moving about

After the boat's owner dropped her off, she was shuttled to the convention center, by then deserted, then onto a military helicopter and finally to the overcrowded airport.

There, she stayed the night with her dogs, jerking awake over and over because she forgot where she was, and in agony from having slept on the concrete porch. From there, she was sent to Baton Rouge, where she finally got the chance to call her family on a borrowed cell phone.

"I said, 'Angie, it's me,' and she started screaming," Miss Zlotnick recalled in tears. "The girls were screaming, 'Nana! Nana!'"

Bound for New York

In Baton Rouge, Chucky and Puppy were brought to a temporary animal shelter, while Miss Zlotnick was shunted around and treated at a hospital. When rescue workers wanted to send her to a fourth location in a single day, she put her foot down.

"When you don't know where your life is and you've got strangers making decisions for you, you want some control," she stated.

She begged rescue workers, "Please, just get me to New York, and my family can help me!"

Miss Zlotnick met a volunteer from "Angel Flight," an organization of pilots who volunteer to help those in need. The group agreed to fly her and her dogs to West Virginia and on to Albany.

Relief at last

"In West Virginia, I stayed at a Red Roof Inn free for the night," Miss Zlotnick recalled, a smile spreading over her face for the first time during the interview. "I remember taking the dogs out and just looking at the trees. That night, I lay on a big bed, clicking the cable [remote]. I had a pizza and onion rings, and cold, cold soda."

The next day, she landed in Albany, where her family welcomed her.

"Even now, it doesn't seem real," she said. "One minute, I'm on a porch in a flood; the next minute, I'm riding home in my son's car."

Charities steps in

Miss Zlotnick agreed to call Catholic Charities, nervous about whether they would help.

Jackie Buff-Rogers, who runs several Catholic Charities programs, "picked up the ball," Miss Zlotnick said. She was taken to a doctor for her medical problems, and Catholic Charities found a hotel where she could stay with her dogs.

She got food, clothes and a new pair of eyeglasses. After Thanksgiving, she expects to move into a Watervliet rectory that's been unused since six parishes there merged recently.

History gone

Miss Zlotnick said that she was "never a rich person," but that it hurts to have "my history wiped out. I was pretty mad at Jesus at first, because I did not have a lot, and to lose what I had hurt."

She's grieving the loss of her home for the past seven years, the birds she used to feed, hibiscus trees she grew, her son's baby pictures, and mementoes left to her by her grandmother and aunt.

A few photos she saved show her former kitchen, decorated with a colorful kite hanging from the ceiling and Mardi Gras masks on the walls.

On the other hand, "I get a chance to start over new. If you don't look at it that way, you get in a lot of trouble," she stated. "I thank God for the blessings I have now. I have money for shoes. I have just four or five shirts, because I don't want to spend too much of the [government aid] money. You have to be responsible."

Snow vs. flood

Miss Zlotnick even delights in something many New Yorkers aren't thankful for: the approach of winter. "I'm dying to see the snow again!" she enthused.

Most meaningful to Miss Zlotnick are the simple Thanksgiving decorations she bought at a dollar store, which cover the walls, coffee table and door of her temporary home.

"I was poor most of my adult life," she explained. "But, when you put up decorations, you feel like you're part of something."

At Christmas, "I had my yard all lit up, and nobody knew I was poor."

Reunion

This Christmas, Miss Zlotnick will be with her family instead of talking to them on the phone.

But "I'll miss New Orleans," she said. There, "you could take the streetcar, or go sit by the river. The aquarium was right there. You could walk down Bourbon Street."

In the Albany Diocese, she said, "without people like Jackie and the other folks at Catholic Charities, I don't know if I'd be so optimistic right now."

After she settles in at the former rectory, Miss Zlotnick hopes to start doing volunteer work for Catholic Charities because "giving something back is a healing process."

(Send donations to relief efforts to Catholic Charities -- with "Hurricane Katrina" in the subject line -- 40 N. Main Ave., Albany, NY 12203. Call Catholic Charities at 453-6650.)

(11/24/05) [[In-content Ad]]