Teen Was Separated from Mom in Hurricane. Reuniting Took Years (Exclusive)

When PEOPLE first spoke with Hurricane Katrina survivor Emani Scott in 2005, she was a 13-year-old girl sheltering at a West Virginia military base with her younger brother Emanuel and grandmother Jerilynn. Although they were together, the family had been separated from Emani’s mother and her 10-month-old sister Jermani, who ended up somewhere in Texas, although the rest of the family didn’t know that at the time.

“We cried and prayed. I thought they’d find my mama and bring her to West Virginia,” Emani said at the time. “When she didn’t show up and we didn’t hear anything, we got more worried.”

Fortunately, their story did have a happy ending: just months later, Emani found her mom and baby sister and they began talking on the phone. But it would still take around two more years before they were able to reunite in person.

The family’s survival instincts kicked in 20 years ago when they left their home near the French Quarter and headed to the Moriel Convention Center for shelter. The only items that Emani took with her were clothes and a pink portable CD player. 

“It was the first one that I had gotten,” Emani, now 33 and a mother of two, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “I had begged for one for a long time.”

They witnessed chaotic scenes upon their arrival at the convention center where people were tightly packed amid no lights and dirty restrooms. What stood out to her the most was the insufferable heat and people dying around them.

Those sheltering were also initially scared at the thought of floodwaters rushing into the center. “It was chaotic,” she says. “That whole panic mode of the crowd went on for a few hours before we realized, ‘Okay, y’all, there’s no water.’ ”

Around the fifth day, military personnel arrived and said that helicopters were arriving to evacuate residents beginning with women and children first.

After the military outlined how many people they could take, the family had to make a choice and decided that Emani’s mom and Jermani would evacuate together while Emani, Emanuel and their grandmother stayed together. At the time, Emani says they just assumed their separation would be short-lived.

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Emani saw her mom and baby sister board a helicopter bound for somewhere in Texas, while another helicopter later took Emani, her brother and their grandma to West Virginia Settling Camp Dawson.

There, Emani and her family members had their first hot shower and real meal since the disaster.

While at the military base, Emani searched for her mom’s whereabouts every day. Later, a family in West Virginia who heard about Emani’s story in PEOPLE, took her, Emanuel and their grandma to live with them.

After a couple of months, through the help of a friend, Emani reconnected with her mom, also named Jerilynn, and her baby sister. She learned that her mom, who had been looking for them too, was stationed in Kingsville, Texas, and had spent much of the time they’d been apart trying to get housing and emergency assistance.

Emani says that things were hard for her mother in Texas and it took her a while to get set up in a new apartment “because she had no resources, she had no money.”

“She did have food stamps so they could eat and she was job searching,” she adds.

About two years later, Emani and her brother finally reunited in person with their mom and sister, who, of course, was no longer the 10-month-old baby she’d been when they last saw each other.

When she went to reach for her, Emani remembers her sister hiding behind their mom, acting like, “Who is this lady coming to me trying to pick me up? I don’t know her.”

Still, says Emani, “we were just happy. We were finally back together.”

“That just felt really, really good,” she adds.

The family stayed in Kingsville for a few more years before moving back to New Orleans where their mom resumed working at a bar. Today, Jermani is currently a student at Drexel University while her brother Emanuel works in security at a VA hospital. Sadly, Grandmother Jerilynn died in 2010.

As for Emani, she became a teacher, received her master’s in secondary education and is currently working on another master’s in data analytics and programming evaluation. She is also a single mom raising two daughters, 6 and 8. 

Now, 20 years later, Emani says that the one thing she wants everyone to know “is that we’re survivors.”

“We’re strong,” she adds. “And if nothing else, this should be a moment that we remember that about ourselves.”