Katrina survivor Karen La Beau finds solace in Shreveport

SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS)- Hurricane Katrina caused billions on damage, killed hundreds of people and changed countless lives, including Karen La Beau’s. Karen was raising a family in New Orleans and working for the State of Louisiana.

Her family had been through many hurricanes, she said, “When we would plan to leave, we called it a hurrication (hurricane vacation). I would look up to see what hotels had pools or activities for the kids; it was a mini two or three-day vacation.”

In 2005, Hurricane Dennis passed through New Orleans in July, and then in August, Hurricane Katrina arrived.

Having just left for Dennis, La Beau said, “A lot of people in New Orleans were like dang another one? We just left, we don’t really have the money, I don’t want to leave.” She told her mom to take the kids, and she and her husband would stay behind.

Her mother was having none of that and insisted they all leave together.

First, they headed to Lafayette. When the now storm headed that way, they went to Houston.

It was in Houston a couple of days later that the reality of the situation hit them.

She told us, “I remember being in the hotel lobby with a bunch of New Olreaneans and we’re watching the TV and like everyone saw when the water came up and you these pictures of it’s covering the houses and you see nothing but the roof’s, everyone is screaming and crying in the lobby of the hotel. They knew we would not be going right back home, it was horrific to watch that and to watch with people who were strangers but yet we all had something in common.”

The family returned a few months later to salvage what they could from their destroyed home. Karen told us there had been too many losses over the years, time and money just due to hurricanes and now this.

They decided then they would not return to New Orleans.

They lived in Lafayette for a while with relatives; however, it was challenging due to the large number of displaced people also residing in Lafayette.

Karen’s father said we have relatives in Shreveport so we could go up there.

She told us, “Nobody really wanted to come to Shreveport, to be honest with you. I just needed to stay in Louisiana because I had fifteen years working for the state at the time and wanted to make it to retirement.”

Her primary concern was for the kids. Stable schools and social activates were at the top of list.

Later, while in Shreveport, she rediscovered art, a passion she hadn’t pursued regularly since her twenties. Karen said, “When i started creating it was out of depression, I missed home, Shreveport was a strange land.”

She calls her art My Life on Canvas. It was originally based in New Orleans, but now she travels the state and incorporates ideas and concepts from all across Louisiana. She even opened her home to the public for mardi gras parties, king cake parties and local art shows.

She has even published a cookbook dedicated to her mother, A Creole Lady’s Stories and Recipes.

Cooking with her mother was special to her, she told us, “My mother had an old plaid red and white Betty Crocker cookbook and she had her gumbo recipe written in there and she gave it to me, the book, and of course I lost it in Katrina. It’s my greatest loss.”