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Hurricane Katrina

Captured on film, joined by the storm

HOUSTON - When the TV is off and the only sounds in the neat, three-bedroom house come from the hum of the air conditioner and the gurgle of an aquarium, 89-year-old Nita LaGarde sometimes has to fight back tears as she falls asleep in her white wooden bed with clean linens.

"This is nice," she said.

The tears are not so much for what she lost, but for what she has found - a new life and new, loving friends in Houston, a city she had never even visited until a month ago during the culmination of a hellish journey.

America met Mama Nita, as she is known, and 5-year-old Tanisha Belvin as they fled the horror of the New Orleans Convention Center in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina.

A grim-looking LaGarde was seen sitting in a wheelchair, her withered white hand clasping Tanisha's tiny black hand, in a Sept. 3 photograph taken by Eric Gay of the Associated Press. The photo of their rescue from the Convention Center was published on front pages around the nation, and the pair became a symbol of the disaster.

"I wasn't going to let her go," LaGarde said of her tight hold on Tanisha in the photo.

Also with them was Earnestine Dangerfield, 60, Tanisha's grandmother and LaGarde's neighbor of 20 years at the duplex they shared in New Orleans' flooded Ninth Ward.

Now, all three are living under the same roof in Houston, courtesy of a local couple.

The three had escaped the rising waters in New Orleans by climbing into the attic, then punched a hole in the roof. With LaGarde and Tanisha tied to Dangerfield with an orange electrical cord, the three were rescued by neighbors in a canoe. They were taken to a bridge, where they stayed for two days.

From there, a helicopter took them to a freeway overpass, then a police truck moved them to a spot outside the Convention Center, where they waited amid the squalor for more days - Mama Nita trading a spot on the concrete for a mattress from a looted hotel. Finally, with fears for LaGarde's declining health, soldiers summoned a helicopter to pluck them from among the thousands waiting to get away.

"They kept us together," Dangerfield said. "I told them: "Where she goes, I got to go.' "

All they had were the clothes they were wearing and LaGarde's mattress as they boarded a plane for Houston, 350 miles away.

They received medical treatment in Houston, then a spot at the city's Reliant Center shelter. They were moved again, to an adjacent arena, and then once more, to a motel.

That was where they were when the Houston Chronicle followed up on the AP's Page One photo, which had prompted many calls from readers wishing to help. The story moved a retired Houston couple, Joe and Daisy Maura, to offer them a vacant house they rent.

"We got our kids together and told them what we were going to do," said Daisy Maura, 67, who retired in August after 45 years as a Houston public school teacher and principal. "We're going to adopt this family."

"You know good people when you see them," said her husband, 68, a retired school basketball coach. "You think: They're just family. Now they're part of us. They are not here alone."

The Mauras got in touch with emergency officials, who put them in contact with LaGarde and Dangerfield.

"This is too good to be true," said Dangerfield. "When I walked in the door, I dropped to my knees. This is better than I had in New Orleans."

"I feel like a millionaire," LaGarde said.

[Last modified October 8, 2005, 01:27:10]