Family Separated By Katrina Reunited
Published: November 1, 2005
When Kimiko Johnson watched her children taking off in a rescue chopper after Hurricane Katrina, She was elated they had escaped death. When she herself was rescued hours later, her joy turned to dread when the children could not be found.
“My whole entire family, we’re up on the roof. Five days, no water, no electricity, no nothing,” Johnson said.
For Johnson, the Katrina flood was brutal. But the really hard part, ironically, came when they were about to be rescued, and the kids had to go first.
“Once the helicopter came, it was ‘kids first, kids and only kids; we’ll come back and get the adults’,” said Johnson.
The chopper pilots kept their word. The problem was, the kids had vanished — lost in an ocean of faces, and a sea of confusion.
“We got to the airport and everybody’s looking for their kids. The kids are gone,” Johnson said.
It took three weeks for Johnson to find her eldest two children, but two months later, the littlest — Queasia — was still nowhere to be found.
A cell phone picture of the 2-year-old was put on the Internet, leading to her whereabouts. Last week, with the help of a Barrow County school counselor and a volunteer pilot, the family was re-united.
“The social worker at my son’s school — she called. I told her the story, and they found this wonderful pilot. And he came out of nowhere and he said okay I’ll do it free,” Johnson said.
Starting over has been difficult, with plenty of red tape, but very little money. Which means no toys and few possessions.
“My daughter walked in and said, ‘momma, where my bed at,’ and how do you explain, it’s underwater baby,” said Johnson. “We’re starting to get back to normal. But now reality is setting in — you lost everything, so you’re starting over and how do you get there.”
For now, like many of the evacuees, the Johnsons are scraping by with the things that don’t cost a penny — love, laughter, family.
Johnson says the folks in Barrow County have been a blessing to her family. That’s where she plans to stay.
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