Group Shares Hurricane Katrina Survival Story

HOUSTON - It has been five years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, causing death and destruction like no one had never seen before.

Everyone knows what happened to the people who were left behind, so when Gloria Rose realized a family friend was not being evacuated, she could not let that happen.

Mrs. Rose was widowed and just before the storm remembered a retired postman who had worked with her husband. It turns out no one had gone to help 96-year-old Eugene Leonard evacuate except Mrs. Rose.

"We just decided we weren't going to leave him behind," says Rose. She, Mr. Leonard and 19 of her family members checked into a hotel room on the 8th floor.

"We had no idea we were going to wake up Tuesday morning to all of that water," says Rose.

"The hotel was being flooded and we had to get out," says Eugene Leonard.

The group seemed to run into one obstacle after another.

"We couldn't get on the elevators because there was no electricity," says Rose.

"I had to be helped down eight flights of stairs," says Leonard. He was 96 years old at the time and on a walker. They had to escape the hotel through waist-deep water.

The family soon learned the parking lot and cars were also under water.

"We lost all the cars except two," says Rose. Twenty-one family members had to squeeze into two sport utility vehicles.

"It was scary because i thought we weren't going to get through it," says Rose's great nephew, 9-year-old Demari Thomas.

He was only four when the storm hit. Making it out of the hotel was tough. Escaping the flooded city seemed impossible.

"We kept running into high water. We ended up on the Claiborne bridge. You could see the Super Dome from where we were and we couldn't go any further."

The family was forced to spend the night on the road with so many others who were desperate to survive.

"It was like a disaster when everybody was just stuck there. All the cars. Everybody," says the 9-year-old boy.

"Then, one of the cars ran out of gas," says Rose.

"I remember hearing a lot of people screaming," says Thomas.

"God, are we going to live? Are we going to drown? Are we going to get through this?," says Rose. All twenty-one in the group eventually made it to Houston. Five years later, Mrs. Rose is still helping the man she saved. Mr. Leonard lives with her.

"We are here for a purpose and that purpose is to help one another. So if you see your brother in trouble, you're supposed to be that good Samaritan," says Rose.

Mr. Leonard is looking forward to turning 102 in December. That is five more birthdays since Katrina. For that, he is thankful to this one special woman.

"Why certainly. I'm alive," says Leonard.