Fractured but not Broken

Melanie Burford

The Dallas Morning News

Jasmine Davis plays with her sister Keira Robinson in a FEMA trailer in the deserted suburb of Lakeview, New Orleans. 'We're one step away from being homeless,' said Jasmine's mother Danielle Robinson. A year after James McCray and 19 dejected family members escaped Hurricane Katrina, the family is now struggling to find solid footing back home in New Orleans. They find themselves determined but scarred, much like the city itself, trying to steady themselves and rebuild the happy lives they led before Katrina washed away everything. Fractured but not broken, the family is hanging onto each other, to their love of New Orleans and their dreams of being part of its rebirth. 'If you didn't have a close relationship, Katrina should have brought on this bond. This unbreakable bond. Because that's what it did for my family,' said Danielle Robinson. '

Melanie Burford, "Fractured but not Broken," in POYi Archive, Item #45595, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/45595 (accessed June 9, 2025).