Five years ago, Syracuse University freshman Sarah Talbot watched as water rose up and washed through her family’s home just outside New Orleans.

 

A webcam positioned at her waterfront home documented the destruction until the reserve battery died.  Talbot was helpless as Hurricane Katrina took a part of her life away.

 

Nearly 40 students and SU community members gathered at Hendricks Chapel Monday night to pay tribute to the lives lost, share stories of the struggle and express hope as Louisiana continues to recover from Hurricane Katrina. 

 

Talbot, now a musical theater major, was just beginning eighth grade when the levees broke. Images of the destruction brought tears to her eyes as they played across a projector during the tribute. 

 

‘Dad, he can’t turn on a TV,’ Talbot said. ‘We were always trying to figure out which neighborhoods we saw on the news.’

 

Yet in the aftermath, she can find hope in the disaster. It has brought her family closer and allowed them to see how insignificant material things can be. 

 

‘Take advantage of the time you have,’ she said as she shared her story to all who gathered.

Robert Axelrod, a freshman musical theater major, remembered a friend who relocated from New Orleans to his hometown of Ann Arbor, Mich. 

 

Fifteen months later, Axelrod was in New Orleans with him and witnessed his reaction as they toured through leveled neighborhoods. 

 

‘It was an important point in his life,’ Axelrod said. ‘Most people never deal with that kind of stuff as a 14-year-old.’

 

Outreach for those in Louisiana has come in several forms from Syracuse students, some emotional and some monetary. 

 

In attendance were several sisters from Delta Sigma Theta, whose organization helped raise nearly $100,000 at their 50th annual national convention in New Orleans this summer. Their work included a service project in the area that helped revitalize the local communities.

 

‘I was expecting a city with pieces back together,’ said Delta Sigma Theta 

 

President Natasha Webb Prather, whose summer visit to New Orleans was her first. ‘What I saw were people capitalizing on disaster; giving tours like it was a museum, not a living community.’

 

SU senior Rebekah Jones, a former editor at The Daily Orange, and the Rev. Tiffany Steinwert, dean ofHendricks Chapel, organized the event.

 

Ceremonies included readings of ‘Toll the Bell’ by Satiyah Fosua, a music slideshow and a lighting of candles to pay tribute to those lost.

 

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