He was outside cleaning in front of his lakefront home the day after Hurricane Katrina had hit when Taiwo Aboidun saw water rushing towards him from the street. He quickly ran inside.

The last time Petrice Sams-Abiodun, executive director of the Lindy Boggs center, had spoken to her husband Taiwo, he told her the morning of the storm how high the winds were and that their large tree in the backyard had fallen right before the phone cut off. Petrice Sams-Abiodun received a phone call on Sept. 7, 2005 from her husband after family and friends had already believed him to be dead.

Petrice Sams-Abiodun explained her husband’s traumatic experience in the days after the storm.

“The water started coming so fast and so quick, all he could do was run up the stairs,” Petrice Sams-Abiodun said.

Petrice Sams-Abiodun, like Danna Center food court worker Barbara Stiner, evacuated to Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina but also had family ride the storm out at home. Barbara Stiner’s son, Christopher Stiner, decided to stay with his godparents in a hotel downtown on Canal Street during the storm, so Barbara Stiner lost contact with him when the levees broke.

“That’s when the chaos came,” Barbara Stiner said.

Mother and son were reunited after Christopher Stiner took a bus to Houston, but he had witnessed a lady in front of him die in her seat on the way there.

“He really showed the panic and chaos when he made it to us,“ said Barbara Stiner. “I could tell it took a toll on him.”

Barbara Stiner and Petrice Sams-Abiodun both returned back to work at Loyola around January 2006, but their living situations had changed. Barbara Stiner had to stay with a friend she had just met for a month before she could pay for her own place, and Petrice Sams-Abiodun and her daughter had to stay in a cousin’s basement apartment for two and a half years.

Mike Dixon, groundskeeper for Loyola, stayed in LaPlace until 2011 and saw his commute to university increase to at least 25 miles. He also noticed the decrease in students, faculty layoffs and cutbacks following the storm.

“After the storm, you have to deal with situations, like financing situations,” Dixon said.

In the wake of change that comes from natural disasters on Katrina’s scale, Dixon said he looks to unity and consideration for one another as qualities to build a better foundation for human beings to move forward.

“Katrina means ‘cleanser,’ the name itself,” Dixon said. “Mother nature is mother nature; she’s gonna do what she’s going to do.”