A week ago, Essie Simon Hennie took to Facebook to tell her story and experience in the 2005 tragedy that left 1.5 million people displaced and took the lives of nearly 1,400 people. Hennie’s family was just one of those displaced families that made its way to North Texas following Hurricane Katrina’s landfall.

The Hennies now call this area home, but they will never forget the day they saw New Orleans under water.

Back in August of 2005, Hennie was living in New Orleans, Louisiana, her hometown, when she began making plans to do something she had done many times before: evacuate.

“As a grown person, once a hurricane got into the gulf and it was at least a 3, I was always moving to higher grounds,” Hennie said Thursday from her McKinney home.

She had evacuated at least 3 or 4 times going as far as Memphis, Tennessee or Jackson, Mississippi or even to Baton Rouge just to get out of harm’s way.

“The first time, when I was a child, we almost lost our lives then,” Hennie remembered Hurricane Betsy, a category 4 storm that made landfall in New Orleans in September of 1965.

“As we were evacuating, my dad’s car stalled in the water,” she continued. “As we were in the water trying to get back in the house, my brother’s foot got caught under a fence. Even more than that, before we did get lifted off the top of the house, we had to stay overnight in the ceiling of the house near the roof. My parents with six kids. We were all under the age of about 12 years old at that point. My father chopped a hole in the roof. He flagged down people and the boats and stuff. The boat brought a family they had to higher ground and then they came back and got us.”

Hennie remembers the boat tipping and her mother and sister falling into the water.

“My dad jumped over, and how he was able to come back with all three of them, we will never know,” she said.

As Hurricane Katrina was growing in size in late August of 2005, Hennie knew what the plan would be because she had lived it many times before.

“When Hurricane Katrina was approaching, it was really, really bad,” she said. “I had an aunt that lived in Alabama and she told us on that Saturday, ‘Y’all get out of there.’ She said the hurricane was coming towards Miami and it was bad. I actually had an activity going on that Sunday and I had wanted to see what they were going to do as far as that activity was concerned. But, in my own mind, I knew we had to get out of there.”

So her family prepared.

“My brother-in-law, who is now deceased, he did not want to leave,” she said. “It was months later when we found him. We did not know whether he was dead or alive.”

Hennie’s family left Saturday.

“It was not that bad for us,” she explained how traffic made the commute longer but she recognized it could have been worse. “We later heard about people in traffic for 15 hours. For some reason — and I know it was nobody but the Lord — we almost zipped from New Orleans to Baton Rouge in about four hours. That normally would take about an hour and 15 minutes. So, it still was not as bad as a 15-hour ride or 20-hour ride that people were experiencing.”

When her family got to Baton Rouge, they got a hotel.

“We could tell that things were getting worse and worse,” she said. “The sky was black. The wind was blowing. I remember that Sunday we got into the pool. There was a flag on a poll and even though there was all of this going on, the flag was standing straight out as if there was a board behind it. It was standing straight.”

Hennie said she always tried to make evacuations less traumatic, but taking part in enriching activities along the way. Once, she visited the former home of Elvis Presley. She said the first time she saw a bear was in a museum her family stopped at during an evacuation.

“The day the levy broke, my sister called and told me,” Hennie said. “Even though she was saying it, it did not really register. We continued looking at the television all day. We went over to Southern University and we were sitting there in the lobby looking at the tv on the big screen. The students that were just starting the semester were sitting around in the lobby. We were sitting in the lobby. We started seeing the devastation.”

By Wednesday, Hennie knew we were not going to go back to New Orleans soon. It was October before her family made it back to her hometown for the first time.

With a new destination in mind, the Hennie family started heading north.

“This was when I started to break” she said. “That is when we saw all the electric companies that were heading south as we were heading north. I just kept thinking, ‘They are going to my hometown. They are going to my hometown.’ By the time we got to Natchitoches, Louisiana, my eyes were swollen from crying. My husband and daughter had to take over the driving. We switched places and when I got in the back of the car, I opened my Bible and it just came to Proverbs 29.

I had never seen this verse before, but it said, “And the Lord is upon the flood.”

This was the comfort that Hennie was given right when she needed it.

“I said, ‘Lord, I do not know what is going on, but you end it,” she remembered.

“So we came on and continued driving. We stopped overnight. We went up to Richardson, Texas. We stayed at an EconoLodge and then we came on to Sherman.”

While Hennie was born and raised in New Orleans, her husband is from Sherman. Hennie’s husband was in the first integrated graduating class from Sherman High in 1968. He went to Fred Douglas School from elementary through 11th grade. His final year of high school was at Sherman High School in 1968.

Hennie’s family stayed his one of her husband’s former classmates for about two weeks.

“We lived with Joe for two weeks,” she said. “Then we got an apartment right there on Taylor Street across from the park. We used to go to MGs and get the Mississippi mud pie. And closer to 75 right by a gas station, I used to get a chicken salad. I remember that. They used to have a really good strawberry salad too.”

The Hennies lived in Sherman for 3 years. Her accent is still pronounced with each word.

“I just thank God for the people in Sherman because we got there that Friday and my husband and daughter did not realize they had lost their social security cards and driver’s licenses,” Hennie reflected on the generosity of the people she met while living in Sherman. When we went to the office to try to get out stuff together, one of the guys, Les Eckles started asking people to give donations. Later on that evening, they brought them to the house for us. His wife Michelle Eakles was the principal at the school near the park.”

She also met city leaders.

“The mayor pro tem at the time, Terrence Steele, we met him the very first Friday,” she said. “We really started getting acclimated to Sherman.

“We made lots of new friends and we reconnected with a lot of friends. When we moved here to McKinney three years later, we got an apartment. daughter moved back here a few years ago. She had moved to Ohio. They bought a home here and we bought a home here. We have been here every since.”

The Hennies officially settled in McKinney.

“I have a B.S. degree in biology and medical technology,” Hennie said. “I have a master’s in education and a master’s in biblical counseling. I also have a Ph.D. in biblical counseling.

“As far as work was concerned, I was always told I needed to go to Dallas to the bigger hospitals. I worked at Baylor for a while. I just was not used to that commute and the highway driving. I just physically could not do it anymore. Since then, I have worked with American Red Cross here in McKinney. I was the office coordinator for five years. I served as a commissioner here in McKinney on a board. I have been active in community and as still active in the area. I did not want to go back to the big city. I wanted something slower. I did not want to be in a big city like Dallas.”

Hennie travels back to New Orleans 3-4 times a year. The most recent time was for her 70th birthday celebration earlier this year even though her actual 70th birthday was last year.

“What has had the biggest impression on me is the way that people can really come together,” she said. “It takes disasters for people to show the real human side of who they are….helping one another. What stands out in my mind is, “Why do we always have to have something so horrible to bring us together as people?” Believe it or not, that is one of the main things I have seen. Why can’t this love continue even after the storm? That sounds like a book, but it is so true.”

Her biggest lesson involves putting importance behind the right things.

“Do not take people or things for granted,” she said. “There were so many people I knew that have perished. Even in ’65, when I was like in fifth grade when Betsy hit, I lost a classmate. A young girl drowned in Hurricane Betsy. It was like our first day of school. It was on a Thursday. I will never forget that. We cannot take people for granted.”

She also related her experience to a recent Texas natural disaster and tragedy.

“Just like Kerrville, there are people we will never see again,” she said. “You cannot tell them you love them. In the blink of an eye, things can happen. I have learned to not take people for granted and life for granted.”

But knowing she was in the right place at the right time, means Sherman will always hold a special place in her heart.

“I could never not thank the people of Sherman for opening their hearts and homes and everything to us,” she said. “We were coming out of church one Sunday and we met Al Hambrick. He was the superintendent of the schools in Sherman ISD. I will never forget that. He walked right up to us and put money in our hands. He did not know us. But, he was so kind and helpful. I hate to start saying names because I will miss someone. But these are just some of the people that just come to me from that time.”