Hurricane Katrina brings student to La Salle

By Lisa Angelucci
Collegian Editor
October 18, 2006

At first glance, Leah Phillips seems no different than any other college freshman. She is excited about the new sense of freedom she has gained since moving into her dorm room and the new responsibilities that come with being on her own. She enjoys the social aspect of college as well.

Leah Phillips is from New Orleans. She moved to Philadelphia a year ago with her family.

“It’s like the sleepover that never ended,” Phillips said. Despite this, Phillips’ journey to La Salle was slightly different than the average freshman’s. Phillips moved to Philadelphia with her family just over a year ago, when her home in New Orleans was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.

Phillips and her family had been out of town for two days for her father’s chess tournament when the hurricane struck. They were unable to return home, and she has never been back. Her family moved into a new home in southwest Philadelphia last year and will likely stay there permanently.

“It looks like we are going to make Philadelphia our home,” Leah’s father, Rene Phillips, said.

The neighborhood where they have settled is a rough area of the city, but Rene tries not to complain.

“We were a middle-class family from a middle-class area who didn’t know enough about Philly to choose an area,” he said. “We had lost everything, and we weren’t in a position to demand anything.” Rene, a 22-year law enforcement veteran in New Orleans, has been thankful for his police training on several occasions. He is also thankful that his family is together and safe.

The Phillips family has noticed many differences between New Orleans and Philadelphia, and the adjustment has been difficult. Both Leah and Rene cite the absence of southern hospitality as the biggest different between their current and former homes.

“The adjustment is culture-wise,” Rene said. “Here things are faster-paced and there is less time.”

As a college student, Leah has adjusted to life at La Salle. She is involved in the African American Student League, the Academic Discovery Program and the La Salle Step Team. She knows that her life at La Salle is very different from what her college experience would have been if she were still in New Orleans.

“I would have gone to school with my family, like my cousins who graduated at the same time. Southern colleges have more activities and athletics. There is more togetherness and hospitality,” she said.

Leah does enjoy Philadelphia, because she said it reminds her a little bit of home, but she misses New Orleans. She is able to see her parents and her younger brother and sister often. However, she has not been able to see any of her friends or extended family, most of whom stayed in New Orleans after Katrina.

Leah said that it is very hard not to be at home in New Orleans.

“I want to go back as soon as I can to visit my friends and my family,” Leah said. “I might travel there in the summers, and maybe go to med school there.”

angeluccil1@lasalle.edu