When I was sent to find Linder Davis for this interview, I didn’t have to look very hard. Stepping into the Emergency Operations Room where clients were registering for Red Cross aid, I was immediately embraced by a woman I’d never met before in my life. She hugged me good, too. No cursory little hug-with-a-pat but a warm, strong hug. That is, I would soon find out, Ms. Davis. Cheerful, thankful, loving, warm and strong. You would never guess his delightful mother and grandmother is the survivor of two of the worst catastrophe’s ever to happen on American soil; 9/11 and Katrina.
In September 2001, Linder, was living in NYC, working for the Mayor’s office in a building that had, what she had considered, the best view in the city —the Twin Towers. She remembers the horrors of that day vividly but is now only interested in telling me about how the Red Cross took care of her while she was stranded in the city for four long days. “You were there,” she said, gracing me with her love for the entire Red Cross organization. “Your Red Cross was there, straight away, tending to victims and rescuers both the same—food, clothing, whatever we needed, you took care of us. The Red Cross is the reason I made it through then…and the Red Cross was the reason I made it through this.”
After the terrorist attack, Linder moved south to the Carolinas to recuperate but eventually decided to move back to Baltimore, where she had been born and raised and still had family. Finding peace and tranquility here, she decided to stay permanently. In January 2005, however, Linder found herself in the hospital battling a serious heart condition that forced her into surgery for a stint implant, and required a three-month hospital stay. When she was finally released in March, her daughter Maggie called and, after a long and heated discussion, convinced Linder to move to Louisiana so she could take care of her. “I need you here by me,” Maggie told her. “So I can take care of you and Trey [the foster child she is hoping to adopt*] and finish school.” So, Linder moved to Pascagoula, in June 2005.
Three months later, a hurricane warning came out that Katrina was in the pipeline and aiming straight for them. That was Tuesday, August 23rd. By Wednesday, the reports of Katrina’s magnitude, dimension and force were increasingly ominous and there was talk of evacuation. On Thursday the 25th, Maggie called to tell her Mom that the convalescent center where she worked was under lock-down and that she was helping to evacuate all the patients but would return to take her and Trey to a safe house. She returned just long enough to transport her mom, her son, a few of their things and some food over to her father’s house, a sturdy structure built on higher ground. She then went back to be with her patients while they rode out the storm.
Sunday, the storm struck and, as expected, the sturdy house survived it. The next day, however, the levee broke and the water came. On Tuesday, the 30th, relatives came with a massive truck to take Linder, her grandchild and the others to find a safer place on higher ground. Unfortunately, they were turned back due to downed power lines and flooding. Tuesday night, the house was flooded and the family moved to the upper deck where they were stranded with no food, little water and three candles. As the temperatures soared the next day, the water ran out and desperation began setting in. And then they saw the Red Cross. “The Red Cross was the first people I saw trying to get to us. They saved our lives, they gave us food and water every day until they could take us.” Thursday, September 1st, the Red Cross was able to pick up all ten off the deck and ferry them out of town, eventually finding a place for them at the Moss Point Holiday Inn. “Whatever we needed,” Linder tells me exuberantly, “the Red Cross got for us. Those poor [relief] workers working 10-12 hour days and then they come back to the hotel and take care of us. They were wonderful.” A few days later, Linder’s niece Leona and her daughter were able to drive the 18 hours (non-stop) down to Moss Point, to pick up Linder and her grandchild and bring them home to Baltimore. Maggie, determined to finish out the semester, will stay in Louisiana until she graduates in December. She has promised her mother that she, too, will then make Baltimore her home.
*It is worth mentioning that when Linder speaks of her grandchild, her whole face bursts into a smile. Trey was an underweight “crack baby,” born to two poverty-stricken crack addicts. Before Maggie took him in, he spent a short time with his biological mother until she sold him to his father and his girlfriend for 8 vials of crack. After a fight, Trey was dropped off at Child Welfare by the angry girlfriend. Against all odds, the boy is now thriving thanks to Maggie’s love and kindness. As a full time student and CNA, Maggie was not in a perfect position to take on the added responsibility of a child, much less a crack baby, but she is Linder’s child and she has Linder’s love, warmth and strength.