Thibodaux author learned big lesson from Katrina

Current Thibodaux resident Wayne Carriere endured a harrowing ordeal during and after

Hurricane Katrina’s passage over eastern New Orleans where he was living, but he came out of the experience with greatly renewed religious faith.

In 2006, Carriere wrote the book “Inspirational Perspectives of a Katrina Storm Victim,” both to chronicle the lessons he learned from Katrina, and to offer spiritual guidance to any person going through rough times. The book was published by Llumina Press in Florida, which hurried to get it published before the one-year, Aug. 29, 2006 anniversary of Katrina.

“I started with seeing the destruction in New Orleans, then I widened it to apply to any trial,” Carriere said.

He is promoting the book, his first-ever published work, to mark today’s second anniversary of Katrina’s arrival.

The 44-year-old training administrator with New Orleans’ Civil Service Dept. has been commuting from an apartment in Thibodaux to his job in New Orleans since returning to work in April 2006. He had been out of a job for six months following the storm.

Carriere moved to Thibodaux because his girlfriend is from there. He lives with her and his son, who is a student at E.D. White High School. Carriere is a practicing Catholic.

He will soon be moving back to New Orleans East to his home, which he is rebuilding with the help of insurance money and Road Home funds.

Carriere lost virtually all his possessions in Katrina’s floodwaters. All the furniture in his apartment was given to him by family members and church groups. In fact, much of “Inspirational Perspectives” was written in the apartment on an older computer donated by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.

Carriere said his main purpose in writing the book was to shine a more positive light on what were terrible experiences for him.

“I wanted to turn away from the gore,” he said, “to see what the hurricane could have meant for us besides destruction.”

“I saw despair and confusion” in New Orleans, he said. “I wanted to offer hope and encouragement, to bring out a positive side to every aspect of the experience.”

The first several chapters of the 125-page book focus on how Carriere survived immediately following Katrina. The bulk of the remainder of “Inspirational

Perspectives”. offers more general spiritual instruction.

When Katrina struck, Carriere was in his aunt’s two-story house in New Orleans East with 10 other people.

After a projectile rocketed into the room, he had to seal the broken window with a headboard.

A helicopter rescued nine people from the house, leaving Carriere and his brother. The helicopter did not return. Carriere and his brother were rescued by someone piloting a small boat through the neighborhood. The two were then deposited on the Interstate in New Orleans East. “Trucks picked us up from the Interstate,” he said. “We thought we were going to Metairie.”

“From the trucks, we were able to see a large portion of the city and the depth of the flooding,” he wrote in the book. “It was unimaginable.”

Instead of Jefferson Parish, Carriere was taken to the New Orleans Convention Center, where he remained for four days. The crowded conditions plaguing the inside of the Convention Center after Katrina are generally known. Carriere did not want to discuss them at any length. He only said, “At the Convention Center, there was so much negative there, I just cut it off. I could see from the frustration that individuals had no hope and faith. If I had told what happened at the Convention Center, it would have taken away from the positive pitch.”

From New Orleans, Carriere was taken to Fort Smith, Ark., where he stayed overnight at a military base.

Carriere’s mother and uncle were in Oneonta, Ala., a small town in the northern part of the state. Someone volunteered to drive him to Oneonta so that he could reunite with his relatives.

“The whole town was supportive of us strangers,” he said. “A waitress happened to overhear that we were having trouble washing clothes. She offered to wash our clothes for us.”

He stayed for a couple of weeks at a church in Oneonta. Carriere has nothing but praise for the church members.

“They helped us get Social Security cards, shots and medicine,” he said. “Part of the book tells how the church helped us get through. They paid my airfare back to Thibodaux.”

“The book is my journey,” Carriere said, “how I ended up in Thibodaux.”

“I like Thibodaux,” he said. “People here helped us a lot. But it was hard for me. I didn’t want to start anew somewhere.”

Carriere did not see his son again until November 2005.

“He started off in the eighth grade at E.D. White,” Carriere said. “He didn’t know where I was after Katrina.”

His son will remain enrolled at E.D. White.

“I’ll make the trips back for him” from New Orleans East, he said.

Carriere had been wanting to write a book since around two years before Katrina. For a long time, he had kept a collection of motivational sayings in a stenographer’s notebook for just that purpose.

The notebook was left in his home inside a briefcase, along with everything else, when he evacuated to his aunt’s house.

Remarkably, the briefcase and a safe box were the only items in his house that survived Katrina’s floodwaters.

“It was a sign for me to write the book,” he said.

“Everything happens for a reason,” Carriere writes in “Inspirational Perspectives.”

“Why did God allow this hurricane to happen in 2005, instead of 20 years earlier when I was in college?” he writes. “Had the hurricane happened when I was in college, I might not be at this stage of my life.”

“Natural disasters (Father Nature) are God’s way of helping us see how and why we all need each other – and Him,” he writes. “Katrina allowed many of us to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes.”

The message in “Inspirational Perspectives” is almost entirely nondenominational.

Carriere said he is not speaking for a particular religion, though some passages are a reflection of his Catholic upbringing.

The book is only available on the Web sites of the major chain booksellers, and through the publisher at www.llumina.com. Customers can also order the book directly at the major chain bookseller store locations, or call the publisher toll free at 1-866-229-9244. The price is $12.95.

Thibodaux resident Wayne Carriere holds a copy of “Inspirational Perspectives of a Katrina Storm Victim,” a chronicle. * Photo by MIKE BROSETTE