In Their Own Words - November 2006
(Personal Stories By Project Managers)
Running From Hurricane Katrina
by Saralee Newell Saralee Newell
Editor’s note:
Saralee Newell, long time PMI member and professional leader, and her husband Michael were forced to evacuate their Louisiana home in the path of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Last year we asked her to try to recount some of their experiences for us when she felt inclined to do so. Now, a year later, she can finally talk about it. Additional background information is provided at the end of her story.
Our home was on a canal across the street from Lake Pontchartrain. We lived there for 23 years, and we had to evacuate a number of times. The first time we took all our photographs and the cats and went to a friend’s house that we felt was safe. The storm turned at the last minute and we sat through a lot of wind and rain, but missed the worst of it. Over the next few years we evacuated many times, each time going to a motel, usually in Memphis. If you look on a map north of New Orleans, you will see that there aren’t many choices of places to go and the hotels fill up fast. The first time we went to Memphis, everyone from Slidell was there. We drove in a caravan and took both cars so that neither would get damaged. Always it seemed that the storm turned at the last minute.
Our house was 12’ above sea level and up until this storm, it had never flooded, but the street usually had some flooding. There was a problem with debris after storms, but it usually was cleared by noon the next day. What we didn’t realize until a few years ago was that the southern part of Louisiana, which formed a buffer for us, was eroding away some say because of global warming. This meant that with each tropical storm or hurricane, we had more problems with storm surge.
Read the full text of Running From Hurricane Katrina
About the Author:
Saralee Newell
Saralee Newell, PMP, PMI Fellow, is the president of PSM Consulting Services based in Clermont, Florida, USA. She was formerly a project management specialist with Pro Unlimited (PeopleSoft); CSC Inc.; BrightStar Information Technology Group; and Walk, Haydel & Associates, Inc. in New Orleans. She has extensive experience in consulting and training related to IT project management, Microsoft Project and traditional project planning and control methodologies. Founder and former president of the Greater New Orleans chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI®), Saralee served on the PMI board of directors during 1997-1999. She served on the board of directors of the PMI Education Foundation during 1997-2002. Saralee was the project manager for PMI’s 1995 Seminars/Symposium in New Orleans, one of the most successful in history with over 2,000 attendees, for which she won a PMI award. She has served on PMI’s Information Systems Advisory Committee, the Global Project Management Forum Steering Committee, the Technical Activities Center (TAC), and the Globalization Project Action Team (GPAT). She was a charter member of PMI’s Information Systems Specific Interest Group (ISSIG) and International Development SIG (IDSIG). Saralee was elected a Fellow of PMI in 2005. Saralee can be contacted at snewell@psmconsult.com.