Family of CC alumnus relocates after hurricane

Nineteen people, 15 turtles, eight cats, six dogs and one parakeet crowded into a moving van bound for Baton Rouge three days after Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans.

Among them was Dr. Harry Pigman ’74, who in the days leading up to the storm had been acting chief of staff at the New Orleans V.A. Hospital, helping to direct the evacuation of patients who were in the hospital, in nursing homes or receiving home care.

Now Pigman sat with his father, wife and two daughters and their four pets ready to flee Louisiana, the state where he was born and his great-great grandfather served as governor before the Civil War. Unable to transport the entire family before the hurricane, they stayed through the violent wind and rain. Their home survived without so much as a broken window. The breach of the levees eventually flooded the basement and yard but left the main living areas intact.

Pigman’s family solicited the help of a local nursing home, which had the moving van, and joined neighbors for the trip out of the city. The group navigated through steets flooded with five feet of water and had to stop frequently to clear fallen trees from their path.

“The first part of the ride was tense, because nobody was certain that we could get out,” Pigman said. “The looting stories prevalent in the media had us imagining the worst.”

But the group arrived safely in Baton Rouge. Pigman’s family moved into a hotel for a couple of nights before a relative picked them up and took them to his home in Houston.

“He brought extra gas with him because many stations had none,” Pigman said.

With a stable place to stay, the family planned what to do next. They found a school for their 13-year-old daughter Isabel to attend eighth grade in Houston. Unable to enroll 16-year-old daughter Zosia — named after Zosia Jacynowicz, a CC music professor Pigman was close to — in a high school there, the family decided to separate temporarily.

Pigman and Zosia flew to Little Rock, Ark., where they moved into the garage apartment of a friend. He was able to resume work as medical director of South Central Veterans Health Network Data Warehouse, and she was started 11th grade.

“I feel great to be alive and nearly settled, but I realize that I’m only over the acute hump and will have to deal with many long-term issues,” Pigman wrote in an e-mail to CC’s Office of College Relations. “The kids seem happy and settled in their new schools and actually excited with their new lives. We do not feel a great sense of loss at this point, mostly relief.”

The separation of the family has not been easy and Pigman is thankful for unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes on his cell phone. To ease the stress, he purchased a small electronic keyboard to play.

“We are among friends and well, and that is most important now. When we are allowed back in, the work of recovery will undoubtedly cause a wave of negative emotion, but we will be fine in the long run. Learning how fragile things actually are has been a lesson for all of us,” he said. “People have been so wonderful everywhere, I think that this has restored or refined our faith in the goodness of others, and in the long run will be a significant growth experience for our kids.”

Pigman wrote, “Stuff is not important, life is. Disaster brings out the best and worst in people. We need to help each other more… When the flood was at its highest, the sky was cloudless, and [our children] saw the night sky clearly for the first time in the city.”