Father Vien Nguyen
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUPROWELL: When the Hurricane Katrina was approaching New Orleans, what position did you and your parishioners take?
NGUYEN: At first, when the hurricane came upon us, it was a surprise, because early Friday morning it was still heading toward the Florida panhandle. We weren't even in the zone of possibility. So by Friday evening, we were almost oblivious to it, because we held a wake for a major figure in the community at the church, and close to a thousand people prepared for that and attended it. The next day we held her funeral at 10:00 a.m. So we were gearing up for all of that. It was after we buried her, when I was waiting for a ferry to cross the Mississippi River to attend a conference, that I discovered that the people in St. Bernard and Jefferson parishes were evacuating. It was only by listening further to the radio that I found out that Katrina was heading toward us. And it came as a total surprise at least for me.
After the conference, I continued to listen to the radio, and I found out that Hurricane Katrina was heading toward our direction. We held Mass that evening, and that's when I told the people, "Just pack up and leave." Basically, that was our position at that point. I also told the people that I know that some of them can't leave for one reason or another and that I would, therefore, open up the school building because we have a CCD school, where there are two floors. It's a newer building in comparison to most people's houses. My thought was that it being more of a commercial building, a new building, that it could take the wind much better than the other buildings in the community, and in the event that it flooded, then if need be, the people could go up to the second floor. The same message was sent out the next day, Sunday, at all of the Masses. We cut short the homily—we skipped it all together—and told the people just to get out. So that's where we were.
ROWELL: How many of the people remained?
NGUYEN: We have altogether 6,300 parishioners, and at the end there were only five hundred left.
ROWELL: And what did they do? Did they gather at the school? [End Page 1071]
NGUYEN: Some of them did. We had more than a hundred who took shelter in the school. The rest stayed in their homes or businesses.
ROWELL: Then what happened?
NGUYEN: When the storm came, they were here. The wind was really whipping up high at about 10:00 Sunday night. Then at 2:00 a.m. Monday, the speed was even higher and more ferocious. At about 4:05 a.m., the power went out and the storm raged on until about 2:30 Monday afternoon. Then at about that point, the wind subsided, and there were only periodic gusts that were further and further in between. That's when people began to return to their homes.
ROWELL: Was there much water in the streets at that time?
NGUYEN: At that point, in the streets themselves, right next to the church, there were about three inches of water at 2:30 p.m. I drove out there just to survey the damage. The damage was fairly extensive. A lot of oak trees were down, and there was a lot of debris on the streets. But there was really no flooding per se. There was nothing unusual in comparison to a big rain. Three hours later—about 5:30 p. m.—I drove the van around again to survey and to see the activity around the community. At that point, as I was driving over the two bridges that span the lagoon surrounding the community, and I thought to myself, "Seems that the water is a little bit higher." So I went back...
