AP: Texas

09/05/2005

Associated Press

A mother, who used lipstick to script her call for help on an old bed sheet that she held on her rooftop, has been reunited with her children thanks to a shelter phone bank.

Lahoma Beal Hudson, who suffers from asthma, was separated from her four children, ages 11 to 21, when high waters prevented her evacuation from New Orleans, said Larry Meyer, spokesman for SBC Communications. The children were at a house a few blocks away when the family decided on an evacuation route.

Hudson was following the route, some minutes behind her family, when police stopped her, saying the path was not safe.

She walked back seven blocks to her house, where high water forced her to her rooftop.

"She fashioned this sign," Meyer said.

A helicopter team lifted her to safety about 2 a.m. Friday, he said.

Hudson was flown to San Antonio, where she used the SBC phone bank at Kelly USA. Hudson's daughter had managed to keep her cell phone charged.

"She found out they were in Dallas. They were all together. They were all OK," Meyer said.

Then, some SBC employees started a collection to fly Hudson to Dallas, where, with the help of Red Cross, she was reunited with her children at Reunion Arena late Sunday night.

SBC has donated phone banks in four shelters in San Antonio, one in the Astrodome in Houston, and one each at the Reunion Arena and Convention Center in Dallas.

"We anticipated there would be moments like this," Meyer said.

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ALVIN, Texas — Jordan Mendez wondered how his new classmates knew his name.

Then he realized it was his drawl.

"They ask me to say New Orleans," Mendez said. "They say I say it different."

Mendez, 15, of Waggaman, La., was one of more than 60 refugee students enrolled in Brazoria County school districts as of Friday.

Mendez joined the eighth grade at Clute Intermediate School.

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BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) — A father and son team saw images of New Orleans residents stranded in flood waters and knew they could help, so they borrowed an 18-foot flat-bottom aluminum boat and headed east. What they didn't know is how they could have become the targets of violence.

When Rusty Sitton, 51, of Beaumont, and his son Russ, 25, of Buna, arrived in New Orleans last week, they checked in at a Federal Emergency Management Agency office only to find officials did not know where to send them.

They searched for stranded residents where flood waters met Interstate 10, but found none.

The next day, they connected with other boating volunteers and city police officers near Harrah's Casino.

They rescued an extended family including three children, and found a pair of ladies in wheelchairs in a dry parking lot surrounded by water.

They helped move non-patients who had sought shelter at Charity Hospital to the Superdome, then drove a Catholic priest to his rectory. When they got back to the boat, police instructed them to move dialysis and respiratory therapy patients from the hospital, according to the Sittons.

While moving some of the patients, the Sittons ran into some men who made them feel threatened. The officer with them pulled out a shotgun and waved the men away.

On their next trip back, another officer warned them about shooting in the area. They only heard gunshots in the distance, but after they rescued a child with spina bifida and a few others, they decided it would be their last run.

By the time they reached their trailer just before dark Thursday, more official help had arrived, Sitton said.

"We'd done everything we needed to do," Rusty Sitton said.

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Information from: The Facts, http://thefacts.com/ and The Beaumont Enterprise, http://www.beaumontenterprise.com