Lafon Nursing Home

Lafon Nursing Home was a New Orleans nursing home run by the Sisters of the Holy Family, an African American Catholic congregation. During Katrina, nineteen residents died there. The account of Lafon sets the residents’ vulnerability against the efforts of staff who moved people out of the rising water and sought outside help, which came too late to save everyone.

Institution and Residents

The Sisters of the Holy Family had evacuated their own members, including residents of the nursing home who belonged to the congregation, before the storm. The nursing-home residents who were not congregants remained at Lafon, along with the sisters and other staff members who cared for them. This uneven evacuation left people dependent on the institution’s remaining caregivers as the flooding threatened the building.

All resident rooms were on the first floor. Staff carried residents who could not walk to the second floor, taking them out of the floodwaters. The account distinguishes this immediate rescue from what followed: the residents did not drown, but nineteen died in the conditions that persisted after they had been moved upstairs.

Flood, Heat, and Delayed Rescue

Although the floodwater quickly receded, the building’s danger did not end with the retreat of the water. Residents died in the heat and darkness. The staff sought help from first responders passing on the highway, but their appeals were ignored. The administrator also went out to seek assistance, wearing her religious habit; rescue came too late.

The sequence is stark: a vulnerable population was left in place, caregivers moved residents away from the water, and the immediate flood threat gave way to heat and darkness while assistance remained out of reach. The staff’s actions reduced one danger, but could not provide the resources needed to protect residents from the conditions that followed.

Significance in the Disaster

Lafon’s story shows how evacuation decisions shaped who remained exposed to danger. Congregation members were transported out before the storm, while residents who were not congregants and the people caring for them stayed behind. Once the floodwaters rose, staff attempted to protect residents with the means available to them, but outside assistance did not arrive in time.

The deaths at Lafon therefore form part of the wider disaster among New Orleans care-home residents: the account records both the staff’s efforts and the limits of those efforts when rescue was delayed. The residents were moved out of the water, yet that intervention could not shield them from the heat and darkness that followed.