Tim Stanley

Tulsa World Reporter

Stephen Pingry

Tulsa World Photojournalist

Sitting on the shelter floor where they would soon be trying to sleep, Christina Joseph huddled beside her children within sight of a small television.

Unfortunately, the news coming from it wasn't getting any better.

"I remember I was sitting there when the news broke about the levees," she said. "That's when I knew it — that our lives were going to be changing."

Just hours earlier, Christina and her husband, John, together with their four young children, had heeded the warnings and fled New Orleans ahead of Hurricane Katrina.

If they needed any affirmation that they did the right thing, the news that the levees had been breached was it.

"Our house was just three or four blocks from the levees," Christina

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