20 years later: Katrina survivors reflect on loss and lessons

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - In late August 2005, college students across New Orleans packed a bag, locked their dorm rooms, and left the city ahead of Hurricane Katrina. For many, it felt routine.

“This is going to be a week max,” said Mashonda Taylor, then a senior at Loyola University. “It always happens this way. It gives us some more days off before classes start.”

But what was expected to be a short break became the beginning of a life-changing chapter. For Taylor and fellow Loyola student Ranika Chaney, the storm forced them out of their community, their classrooms and everything familiar.

“What should have been a one-hour drive was about seven hours,” Chaney said. “And that’s when I first was like, what is happening here.”

She eventually enrolled at Saint Louis University, hundreds of miles from home, surrounded by strangers and living in donated clothes. She says the first time she saw the destruction back home was on a TV in a bus station.

“My heart completely broke. I broke down crying, and I said, ‘My people, my people.’”

Katrina didn’t just scatter students. It also pushed people like Sherry-Lea Bloodworth Botop to act. She had evacuated to Alabama with her children, but felt called to return and help.

“We put some bottled water, whatever we had in the church into the bus, and we started heading west,” she said.

What she saw on the road stayed with her for life- people dazed, stranded, and desperate.

The experience led her to testify before Congress and shift her career toward disaster recovery and resilience.

For all three women, Katrina marked a turning point - one that came with heartbreak, but also purpose.

“Katrina changed my life,” Taylor said. “I get to take everything that I felt and learned and turn that into what now is positive work happening in community where lives are changing every day.”

Watch the full story above to hear how their journeys unfolded, and how they continue to find strength and hope in the wake of Katrina.

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