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storm. They had stayed in their van in a Wal-Mart parking lot on the way out to New Orleans from Chester Gap, and they knew that Wal-Mart was not particular about who parked there. On the morning of Monday August 29, as Katrina smashed into New Orleans, the boys knew they had gotten far enough away. “Lafayette didn’t get much rain at all,” said Justin.
The three young men from Rappahannock ended up living in the Wal-Mart’s lot for three days. They hung around the store and tried to find ways to amuse themselves, playing basketball with shopping carts in the parking lot. They also got some help from Lafayette.
“There were a lot of do-gooders. A lot of locals were trying to help us,” recalled Justin.
Rescue mission
On Tuesday, Montse and Jim Vittitow headed out to get their son.
“Tuesday afternoon we rented a little car and drove through the night,” said Montse. The Vittitows had to pick Justin up because he was out of gas in Lafayet+">, and with Katrina having knocked down communications for the Gulf Coast area, it was difficult to wire him money. As the Vittitows were to discover, even if Justin had gas money, he might have had trouble finding gas to spend it on.
“Every time we found a gas station, it was always out of gas,” said Montse.
“Around 2:30 a.m. we saw people waiting in line at stations just in hope that a gas truck would come fill up the tank,” said Jim.
The Vittitows eventually developed a strategy to keep their car going during a gas shortage.
“Whenever we passed a station that did have gas , we topped off our tank.”
As they got closer to the region affected by Katrina, the Vittitows saw the destruction Katrina had caused even to places far removed from New Orleans.
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