By CALEB FREY

Staff Reporter 

LAPLACE – A Dodge Neon with only remnants of glass where the windows used to remain doesn’t sound like the preferred mode of transportation for driving out of town, especially for escaping Hurricane Katrina. But finding a car with a running motor was just as good as hitting the lottery.

This journey has been their life, and it’s been rough for Lekisha Batiste, husband Don Lewis, her mother Debra and daughter Kayla, but it wasn’t impossible. Lekisha and Don, with mother and daughter in tow, left their home in the Gentilly and eventually regained their feet in LaPlace thanks to local relatives but the road they traveled was long and winding.

The sights of packed shelters are still fresh in people’s minds and for those who stayed in one it was a sight they will most likely never forget. Debra Batiste recalled staying in the Cajundome in Lafayette.

&#8220It was rough. People were walking over your head while you were trying to go to sleep,” Batiste said. &#8220The people who were helping were really nice though.”

The kindness of strangers led Lekisha and family to Houston, Tex shortly after leaving the Cajundome. A friend of a friend through Lekisha’s husband Don extended their home to the Batiste’s for three weeks following the storm.

&#8220Everybody was sleeping on the floor but it was better than being homeless,” Lekisha said.

Meanwhile, nervous uncle Jarion Clayton of LaPlace wondered about the well-being of his niece Kayla until she and Lekisha made it home safely, which they did three weeks after Katrina passed.

Jarion and his wife Trene were one of the first to get their electricity back on in St. John Parish, following the storm, even though their neighbors across the street still had no power. Jarion grabbed an extension cord and ran it across the street so neighbors could run fans and refrigerators.  Neighbors on Jarion’s side of the block took a cue and did the same. It wasn’t enough to ease Jarion’s mind though about his family.

&#8220I had a headache 24-7 not knowing if my niece was all right,” Jarion Clayton said about Lekisha’s daughter.

The Clayton’s house sustained damages to the roof and fences from the storm but that didn’t stop them from taking in Batiste and her family. &#8220It was like having one big happy family,” Trene Clayton said.

Jarion was not only happy to see his family safe but made a new friend in Lekisha’s husband Don.

&#8220It was nice having somebody around to watch the games with,” Clayton said. &#8220I had never met him before so I didn’t know what to expect but we hit it off.”

Luckily, Lekisha ran across a vacant apartment in Kenner that the landlord was working on.  She stopped and spoke to the landlord and the rest is history.  Lekisha Batiste could finally rest her head again in a home of her own, courtesy of her determination and the kindness of strangers.