The seriousness of Betsy, as men prayed
John Doucet by Ryan Branton, 2010; 4700.2099
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Archbishop Philip Hannan after Hurricane Betsy hits Lousiana. CNS photo by Frank J. Methe, Clarion Herald, 1965.
TEMPESTS: Storms in the Archives
John Doucet: Anyway, by the time we got there, things were really bad. We got out, we went in the house and it was late. It was almost time to go to bed but as a kid, I was petrified. I was a nervous wreck. I couldn't possibly go to bed, right? So mom was nervous, everybody was nervous. They wanted the kids in bed and away, so I was nervous. I threw up in bed. I remember that the boards that my aunt had put against her window were pounding and one of the windows crashed on top of me. There was no way I was getting back in bed, so I was a wreck all night. But the most harrowing thing was when the men got together to murmur the Rosary. When women pray, it's alright. When men pray, you know something's wrong. And that was probably . . . It wasn't the nervousness, it wasn't because my dad wasn't there although those were tremendously big emotional things. It wasn't the glass falling on me. When my grandpa and the other men started praying, that was scary.