Learning from Katrina

Joining hundreds of thousands of American teenagers in a springtime ritual, Kendall Collins marched across the stage, grabbed his diploma and walked into a new world, letting high school fade into history.

For the Algiers native and former senior at L.B. Landry High School, that May afternoon marked a second foray into unknown territory.

The first was not part of a ceremony, but a Coast Guard rescue. And what faded into history then was not homeroom, but home itself.

from the Times Picayune