AP: Katrina Kicked Off Troubled Souls' Odyssey

[mcscajun]

Worthwhile reading the entire article. It's an amazing story.

HOUSTON (AP)
(snip)

Others - hundreds of thousands of them - had also escaped from New Orleans. But few could match the extraordinary, even miraculous odyssey of Fruge and his comrades - 16 mentally ill men and recovering addicts, cast out of their group home, Abstract House, by the storm.

For a week the men stuck together through Hurricane Katrina and its rising waters, following a survival instinct like a candle in the dark and gamely caring for each other as they traveled unsupervised for nearly 500 miles. They arrived at dawn in Houston, a sprawling and unfamiliar city among the thousands of hurricane refugees who have made the exodus to Texas, but without a friend in sight.

(snip)

"Vic came up to us at the medical triage center and said there were 16 mental patients in a group," recalls psychiatrist Allison. "We asked him if he was their caretaker. He said, 'No, I'm one of the patients!'"

(snip)

What's next for the Abstract 16? It's the same question dogging more than 1 million Gulf Coast residents now scattered from Utah to Cape Cod in the greatest American diaspora since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, or even the Civil War.


© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KATRINA_THE_ABSTRACT_16?SITE=LABAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-09-18-18-14-55

[babylonsister]

1. Phew! That's a helluva story-thanks. The Abstract 16

really impressed me; despite everything going against them, they 'made it through'. All these personal stories tear at my heart. :(

[mcscajun]

2. Tugs at mine, too...shows the big difference between us and

Freeper types...our spirits function on wide-open.