Stephen F. Austin State University

Twelve-year-old Trina Francis was bunkered down in a hotel room with eight family members when Hurricane Katrina bore down on her hometown, New Orleans.

Trina's first-person account of the 2005 calamity is vivid and easily envisioned.

She describes trees whipping in the wind, trashcans rolling down the street ... and her aunt snoring so loudly no one else in the hotel room could sleep.

Trina's recollection of Hurricane Katrina is her own unique story -- natural disaster viewed through the eyes of a child.

Months after Trina and her mother relocated to Texas, the young girl wrote a book for a class project titled, "The Horror of Katrina." She illustrated the cover with rising, rolling waves of water, dark clouds and a lightning bolt.

Now, a group of Stephen F. Austin School of Social Work students are working with her to have that book published. Trina's story so touched their hearts, they believe it would also captivate others who might have the opportunity to read it.

Trina describes, in her book, what it was like to roll her disabled mother's wheelchair down eight flights of stairs when the elevator stopped working.

"It's not exercise," she wrote. "It's a backache."

On the streets, after the storm, Trina saw broken windows and a state of destruction she never could have imagined.

"We were hungry and dirty," she said. The family left their hotel, with as many people packed into the bed of a truck as they could fit.

That night, asleep in the home of an extended family member, Trina dreamed of the storm and what she had seen. She said she heard something in her sleep that sounded like, "Wake up, it's time for breakfast."

But when she fully awakened, she heard what people on the streets were actually saying: "Wake up, the levee broke."

Trina heard the sound of rising water and screams of "Help! Help! Help!"

The family's truck wouldn't start for several hours, because water had flooded the exhaust pipe, Trina said.

Finally, the family was able to start the engine and use the truck as a means of escape. They chose their route carefully, knowing that many bridges were either flooded or destroyed. The gas in their tank was a precious commodity.

"When we got on the main interstate there were people laying on the bridge with blankets over their head which meant that they were dead,"

Trina wrote in her book. "We saw people crying saying, 'What are we going to do?' And we also saw people who were just standing there holding their children in their arms."

The ride in the back of the truck with eight other people was something Trina will not forget. Nor will she forget the relief of arriving in Grand Prairie, where the family was able to fill their truck with gas and find a hotel room.

One thing Trina said she did not put in her book was an incident that occurred in a grocery store before her family left New Orleans. She said she and her brother were given permission by a merchant to go into his store for enough food to help them survive the next few days. As they bagged bread and other necessities they were grabbed by someone in military garb who roughly escorted them from the store, she said.

"The man said, 'You black people quit stealing things,'" Trina said, casting her eyes toward the floor. "The owner of the store told us we could get some food. Other people were walking by with armloads of tennis shoes. We just wanted something to eat."

Except for that incident, Trina said she and her family were treated with compassion and kindness.

In Grand Prairie, the owner of a Golden Corral restaurant learned of the family's circumstances and invited them to eat as much as they wanted for as long as they wanted. After a couple of weeks, Trina and her family relocated to Arlington, where they stayed for about three months. Then, they moved to Clifton, where someone had donated a house for them to use.

Eventually, Trina and her mother moved to Nacogdoches, where Trina currently attends Mike Moses Middle School.

She and her mother have slowly begun to put back together the pieces of their lives.

"I thought it would be scary moving to a new school," Trina told a group of SFA social work students who recently gathered to hear her story. "But it's not scary. I've made new friends at every place."

Trina said she wrote her book, "The Horror of Katrina," while attending Clifton Middle School. She has shared it with her teachers in Nacogdoches, and SFA social work student Annie Rios learned of it through her internship at Catholic Charities.

Rios said she and other students have begun the process of contacting publishers, and they look forward to seeing Trina's story on the shelves of local bookstores.