CHARLOTTE — Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, killing 1,200 residents, and tearing through the southeastern part of the state 20 years ago Friday.
The hurricane made landfall an hour south of New Orleans as a Category 3. It collapsed levees and changed New Orleans forever.
And one Matthews woman relived the horrors that New Orleans faced, and what Louisianians lived through, with Channel 9’s Hannah Goetz.
“I remember very vividly the morning that the storm came into the city, my dad and my mom were standing in my grandparents’ living room, watching the television and watching the news reports,” survivor Corey Milliet said. “Watching water just rise rapidly as soon as those levees broke”
Milliet told Goetz she grew up just 15 minutes outside of downtown New Orleans.
“This is the Superdome here; you can see the damage on the top of the roof,” Milliet told Goetz as they flipped through a photobook together.
When Katrina hit in 2005, Milliet was days away from starting her freshman year of college. But her family had to evacuate.
“One of the news reports, they were doing this overhead, kind of like camera shot from a helicopter,” she said. “And of course, my dad, having grown up there his whole life, you know, was like, looking at the screen and able to really identify where they were flying over. And he was like, ‘Okay, this is the large furniture store not far from our home, and our home is right here.’ And we could see that the entire area was underwater, and you could really only see tops of trees, roof lines, you know, and just water. And so it’s like in that moment, my mom and dad just looked at each other, and they looked at me, and they said, ‘Okay, at least now we know.’ And, you know, we were able to really quickly see that everything my parents had worked for was gone in an instant.”
She said her family lost everything but their lives and the college supplies she had taken with her.
“I was so emotional and just devastated for my parents, and I felt so guilty right saying ‘I’m going to go off and start this new part of my life’ when my parents are having to rebuild everything that we’ve ever known,” Milliet said. “I’m supposed to be with them. And I’ll never forget my grandfather saying to me, he looked me in the eyes, and he said, ‘Corey, we all have a job. Your parents’ job right now is to focus on rebuilding and re-establishing their life, and your job is to go to college and to start your life.’”
And that next chapter brought her to Charlotte, to Johnson and Wales University. But things back home were still changing as the state reacted to Katrina’s destruction.
“I remember going home for my very first break from school was in a FEMA trailer, you know,” Milliet said. “And I remember sleeping on the floor in my parents’ business.”
But she said she found an unexpected calling in Charlotte as the director of Age Level Ministries at Matthews United Methodist Church.
“It was not something that I would have ever pictured for myself,” she said. “But I know that through Hurricane Katrina coming to Charlotte, it was like there was a way that God was able to redeem such a really difficult situation in my life.”
Over the past 13 years, Milliet said she and the church have made an impact on hundreds of kids’ lives, including recent college graduate David Wembo.
“He’s got great character, and I could not be more proud of who they are,” Milliet said. “David, you’ve worked so hard, man, and all of us are so proud of you.”
And Wembo said her impact has been important.
“The biggest impact she had on me was growing in my faith,” he said. “I think it’s super important to have someone like Corey in your life.”
Milliet said her experiences in Katrina have helped shape her to help others.
“I lived it myself,” she said. “And when you’re in the thick of those traumatic experiences, you oftentimes feel like all hope is lost. And I really do feel like it’s so important for all of us, whether you’re in a church or not in a church, our calling as humans is to bring hope to other people.”
Twenty years after the horrors and destruction, she encourages others to face their new chapter and challenges head-on.
“Time is going to keep going. Change is inevitable, and the honest truth is it’s all about what you do with that time,” Milliet said. “I would just encourage folks to keep going, keep pushing forward, keep finding hope in the darkness, especially when it feels lost.”
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