Morris-Ward first heard warnings from relatives and a brother and then realized the threat too late. She packed her boys, drove to the Eighth Ward for her mother, and at a Chalmette checkpoint was denied reentry because she had left her purse. Guards warned that returning would be futile as 'y'all gonna be under 20 feet of water,' but she went home. Water seeped in rapidly; they fled upstairs as the wind tore the roof off and neighbors broke through walls. She held a son out a window to flag boats and saw dead bodies floating. After 16 hours boats rescued them, but RaShad remained missing despite a promise to reunite.
She packed the boys into the car and drove to the Eighth Ward to get her mother. On the return trip, guards wouldn't let them enter Chalmette without ID - and she had left her new purse behind. When they went back, the purse was still on the porch, untouched. "That's how many people had started leaving the city," she says.
"I dunno why you're trying to go out there," she recalls the armed serviceman telling her, "Y'all gonna be under 20 feet of water anyway. You won't make it." Taking offense to the condescending tone, Morris-Ward said she replied, "That's between me and God." Back home, she cooked food as her mother watched TV and the boys played. She figured it would rain and they'd be fine.
Water was seeping in. It rose so fast that soon they fled upstairs. The wind tore the roof off. They worked with neighbors, breaking through walls to reach safer units. At one point, Morris-Ward held Poo$ie out a window to flag down passing boats, then pulled him back, afraid he'd be traumatized by the sights. "He saw a lady pass by with her arms folded tight, dead, floating on her back. With a baby," Morris-Ward says.
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