Katrina survivor names daughter after storm

TAMPA - Kevin Lacassin considered himself the definition of a ‘New Orleans guy.’

Lacassin grew up in New Orleans. He lived in uptown New Orleans. He worked at a New Orleans restaurant. He loved the people, the culture and the food.

“In my mind, I didn’t think I’d ever leave,” he says.

Yet, five years ago today, Lacassin was in his car driving to Chicago. Forced to evacuate because of Hurricane Katrina, Lacassin had to watch on television and listen on the radio as his beloved hometown was destroyed by flooding.

“It was tough,” Lacassin said. “It was incredibly emotional to have to watch it unfold on TV.”

Lacassin never lived in New Orleans again. The city was torn apart so badly that he needed to move to a different city to survive.

Five years later, he now lives in Wesley Chapel, Fla., where he has tried to move on from what he calls an “unbelievably bad experience.”

Still, part of him also believes it was meant to be. Lacassin now runs a successful catering business in the Bay area. He met his wife here in Florida and they had a daughter, who they named Katrina.

Jessica Leigh lived in Shreveport, La., when Katrina hit five years ago. She was working a photographer for the Shreveport Times and went to New Orleans to document the damage and desperation.

“I just wanted to make sure people knew the people were suffering and it wasn’t their fault,” Leigh said.

Leigh’s pictures clearly show the despair felt by so many people in New Orleans, yet she says she often felt a single snapshot couldn’t truly replicate what she was seeing in the city.

Five years later, she has left the journalism industry -- in large part because of her experiences covering Katrina -- and now works as a freelance photographer in Tampa. She shoots photographs for her company, Jessica Leigh Photography.

But interestingly, this photographer says it’s not the sights she will always remember, but a different sense.

“I remember the smells, unfortunately. The smell of urine, the smell of death in the city."

You can view Jessica’s Hurricane Katrina pictures by

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