PLANO, Texas — When tragedy strikes, dispatchers are often the first voice you hear.

Quanise Thomas has been a dispatcher for more than 25 years, and she is used to the question she gets asked often: 'What is the worst call you've taken?'

For Quanise, that answer is 20 years ago and her answer is always the same: Hurricane Katrina.

“Nobody could have prepared us for that,” Thomas said.

She was a dispatcher for the New Orleans Police Department when the storm hit. And while her city drowned, she stayed behind, leaving her 10-month-old twins with family, to answer call after call.

“We were listening to people basically drown,” she recalled. “I’m listening for my street…for my neighborhood.”

Gunshots echoed over the phone lines — not from criminals, but from people who couldn’t bear the

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