Aug. 29, 1982. The day Alnitia Woods was born in New Orleans.
Aug. 29, 2005: The day Hurricane Katrina plowed into New Orleans and changed her life forever.
“I believe that I can go through anything right now because I’ve been through the worst, basically being homeless,” said Woods, 43, who now calls Walls, Mississippi, home. “[It’s made me] a stronger person.”
In the two decades since being hit by one of the deadliest storms in American history, New Orleans has rebuilt, but not totally recovered.
The 2020 census revealed a population decline of about 100,000 people since 2000. Of the 1.5 million who evacuated across three states, 25% of people permanently relocated somewhere more than 450 miles away.
Alnitia Woods, a former New Orleans resident and survivor of Hurricane Katrina, poses for a portrait outside the clinic where she works as an office coordinator at Methodist Medical Group in Memphis.
Escaping the storm
As Katrina brewed in the Gulf, Woods was initially hesitant to upend her life and leave, even for a short time. She had two sons, Tori and Tyree, then just 2 years old and 2 months old.
“Prior to that it was Hurricane Andrew, and we were supposed to evacuate, which we did. We did leave the city, nothing happened,” Woods said. “So here comes Katrina, and I did not want to leave — it was too much to leave.”
Her entire life was in New Orleans — parents and grandparents, and her job with Marriott.
After some convincing from her dad, Woods, her sons and her parents finally decided to evacuate as Katrina approached. They barely made it out before the hurricane made landfall — gas was becoming scarce, and it took time to find a station with enough to leave the city.
The family left for Houston and found a hotel, but due to the massive amount of people who had also evacuated from Louisiana, they were told they could only stay and sleep for a couple hours.
That was just the beginning of a months-long ordeal.
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A home in Alnitia Woods’ parents’ neighborhood was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. It is photographed in fall 2005.
On the way back to New Orleans the next day, police blocked the road and told Woods they were not letting people return yet. Meanwhile, they had no contact with older family members who remained in the city, and for months had no idea if they were alive.
“When Hurricane Katrina hit, the phone lines were down for a while,” she said. “So we had some lost family. It probably took us about a month or two to get in contact with them. My mom had a sister that was missing and someone called her and told her that she was still alive.”
It was only after staying in Baton Rouge with family friends for about two months that they were finally allowed back into the city.
“We went back, and everything was a total mess, like my apartment was damaged [with] mildew. Nothing to save, no pictures, no clothes, nothing.”
Recovering from disaster
For about six months after, Woods stayed in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Her employer in New Orleans, Marriott, set her up with a hotel job in the city, and let her stay in that hotel with her kids and parents until she could get back on her feet. Though she had her parents to help care for Tori and Tyree, it was still a difficult time to raise two kids with few resources to work with.
“We got depressed for a minute, like my mom was kind of depressed for a little bit,” she recalled. “It was hard try to pull through that depression, try to figure out what we’re going to do with our life. We just got through it one day at a time.”
Leaving was made all the more difficult considering how long the family had lived in New Orleans. At least seven generations had lived in the city before Katrina changed everything.
Photos of Alnitia Woods’ grandparents’ home in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina. The after photo is from fall 2005.
Thanks to relocation assistance from Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2006, Woods and her family were finally able to afford a new place to live. Her mom knew a fellow New Orleanian who moved to DeSoto County and recommended the area, so the decision was made to follow suit.
Now 20 years later, Woods and her family are doing much better. She has been with Methodist Medical Group as an office coordinator at the Methodist campus in Memphis’ Medical District for 10 years and is working on a bachelor’s degree in IT at the University of Memphis. Woods said her goal is to work in echocardiography at Methodist.
She has a third son now as well — 8-year-old Christopher.
Alnitia Woods, a former New Orleans resident and survivor of Hurricane Katrina, poses for a portrait in an exam room within the clinic where she works as an office coordinator at Methodist Medical Group in Memphis.
Her experience with Katrina hasn’t dampened her opinion on New Orleans as a whole. Woods said she’s never considered moving back, and especially wouldn’t now due to crime. Still, some of her grandparents and other relatives remain in New Orleans, and she always enjoys a visit.
“I love it, I love it,” she said. “Still love the food. They rebuilt a lot over there, it’s like every time I go back there’s something new… I miss the people with the [New Orleans’] accent. I really don’t have an accent as much because I moved from there.”
Losing everything is something most people can’t fathom, but it’s an experience that’s only made Woods greater and brought her family closer together than ever.
Jacob Wilt is a reporter for The Commercial Appeal covering DeSoto County, as well as Dining in the Memphis area. You can reach him at jacob.wilt@commercialappeal.com.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Hurricane Katrina: New Orleans native on starting over