Louis, 7, a victim of Hurricane Katrina draws in New Orleans [sic: Houston] at the Astrodome stadium. [Source: XtraMSN New Zealand & Reuters]
HOUSTON (Reuters) - In the last week, Joseph Brant lost his apartment, walked by scores of dead in the streets, traversed pools of toxic water and endured an arduous journey to escape the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in his hometown New Orleans.
On Sunday, he was praising the Lord, saying the ordeal was a test that ended up dispelling his lifelong distrust of white people and setting his life on a new course. He said he hitched a ride on Friday in a van driven by a group of white folks.
"Before this whole thing I had a complex about white people; this thing changed me forever," said Brant, 36, a truck driver who...is black.
"It was a spiritual experience for me, man," he said of the aftermath.
At the Astrodome in Houston, where 16,000 refugees received food and shelter, Rose McNeely took the floods as a sign from God to move away from New Orleans, where she said her two grown children had been killed in past years in gunfights.
"I lost everything I had in New Orleans," she said. "He brought me here because he knows."
Inside, Gerald Greenwood, 55, had collected a free Bible but sat watching a science fiction television program above the stands in an enclosed stadium once home to Houston's baseball and football teams. "This is the work of Satan right here," he said of the floods.
The Salvation Army conducted an outside religious service that included songs such as "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."
"Natural disaster is caused by the sin in the world," said Maj. John Jones, the group's area commander. "The acts of God are what happens afterwards ... all the good that happens."
Others took a different view, including Tim Washington, 42, who on Saturday waited at the New Orleans' Superdome to be evacuated. "God made all this happen for a reason. This city has been going to hell in a handbasket spiritually," he said.
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