Life stories behind Hurricane Katrina's victims

[finecraft]

http://www.nola.com/living/t-p/index.ssf?/base/living-5/1132037896260250.xml

Snip - "An Indiana native who grew up loving opera and wanting to sing professionally, Zumpe used his tenor voice to help pay his college tuition. In World War II, he was a fighter pilot who was captured by German forces in October 1944, after his plane was shot down.

Zumpe was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and about a dozen battle stars.

When Katrina approached, Hayes said, her grandfather wanted to be with his books, which the floodwater turned to pulp.

The family thinks Zumpe hunkered down in his attic with pictures of and by family members, but at some point decided to go downstairs. While there, the floodwater apparently knocked his frail legs out from under him, and his body was found in the den.

He was buried in Daleville, Ind., on Friday -- Veterans Day." End Snip

Rest in peace Mr. Zumpe. Thank you for your service to our country. You, and the over 1,000 others who perished, will be greatly missed. :cry:

[Devlzown]

1. Sad story.

I meet people all the time who lost everything. Many of them stayed because they thought nothing could be worse than Camille, and the water didn't reach so high back then. It's going to take years to recover from this -- hell, we still can't drive down the beach here in Gulfport. I was very lucky. There were trees down all around the house, but none landed on the house. I didn't even lose a shingle. And thanks to all the people who came from all over the U.S., we weren't really out of power for that long -- about a week or so. They really worked their asses off. They couldn't get the power going until all the trees and debris were removed from the roads, and that was a monumental task in itself. There were also a lot of private organizations, besides FEMA, who helped make sure we all had food, clothing, and clean water and ice. Americans really stepped up to help out in this situation and I'll never forget it.