Their home was in a New Orleans neighborhood called Holly Grove.
"A lot of drugs and violence in our neighborhood," Corey said.
"It's hard to just get up and go when you don't have anything," Jermaine said. "Besides, everything we know is in New Orleans."
They went on their way in tandem in search of their mother, somewhere upstairs in the terminal.
A 47-year-old grandmother was rocking a grandchild.
"These people look at us and wonder why we stayed behind," said Carmita Stephens. "Well, would they leave their grandparents and children behind? Look around and say, 'See you later'?" She gave a roll of the eyes behind the raised voice.
"We had one vehicle. A truck. I wanted my family to be together. They all couldn't fit in the truck. We had to decide on leaving family members -- or staying."
She shifted the grandchild in her arms. "I'm living paycheck to paycheck. My mother passed away this year. I was helping take care of her. My real job was as a private-duty caregiver. I had one patient. He died two weeks after my mother passed, on May 6." She calculated that the family made a little more than $2,500 a month -- but that included help from her son Jamel's job. "He's missing now," she added. "So is Eric Stephens, my husband."
They were soon to be Texas-bound. "And I don't even like Texas," she said.
All morning, they kept arriving, walking as if through a morbid dream.
"I got $3.00 on me now," said John West, 39, formerly a resident of the Sixth Ward here. "I'm serious."
He said he has never had a savings account in his life. "I make $340 a month," he said. "I stay with my mother. I give her about $150 of that. His income is from a disability check. His hands got badly burned in a 1993 fire. "I lost a little nephew, but I saved two kids," he said.
