Hurricane Katrina Dispatcher Recounts Harrowing Experience and Lingering Trauma

Dispatching During Hurricane Katrina

• 📞 Quanise Thomas, a former New Orleans dispatcher, recounts the overwhelming experience of handling emergency calls during Hurricane Katrina.
• ⚠️ She describes the inability to prepare for the scale of the disaster, stating, "Nobody could have prepared us for that."
• 👂 Thomas listened to people "basically drown" and heard pleas for help, a sound that still haunts her.

Personal Impact and Family Separation

• 💔 Thomas left her 10-month-old twins to work, enduring nearly two months away from her family.
• 🏠 She recalls searching for her own street and neighborhood amidst the chaos.
• 😥 She learned her father was rescued from his roof and did not know her mother's whereabouts for a month until she appeared on a news channel.

Lingering Trauma and New Beginnings

• 💭 Even 20 years later, Thomas struggles with the uncertainty of whether the help she promised ever reached callers.
• ✈️ She and her children relocated to DFW in 2006, moving to a town named Fate.
• ⛈️ Storms still trigger anxiety, and she expresses a strong reluctance to return to New Orleans.

Continued Service and Perspective

• 📞 Thomas continues her work as a dispatcher in Plano, Texas, still answering emergency calls.
• ✨ Hurricane Katrina provided her with a unique perspective on the significance of being "the first voice you hear" and, tragically, sometimes "the last voice that they heard."