The water was up to their waists in their New Orleans home. A baby shark swam in their front yard. Yvonne, 15, wasn't afraid. "Daddy wasn't afraid. So we weren't afraid. He's a good fisherman, you know. He wanted to catch it," she said.
"My sister came home and pushed open the door. Our porch was covered with starfish." Yvonne's eyes widened. "Starfish. We didn't know where they came from." Yvonne told her story to a volunteer at the Austin, Texas, shelter where her family now lives.
Her family was rescued by boat, transferred by helicopter to the New Orleans convention center, flown in another helicopter to the New Orleans airport, and jetted by Southwest Airlines to Austin. Exciting as these flights might have been, Yvonne remembered the starfish.
Yvonne gazes at her Batman coloring book. Someone's told her about Austin's bat colony, one of the largest in the world. When the bats awake at dusk under the Congress Avenue bridge, their flight over the Colorado River is thick as smoke. She is captivated.
She didn't know why the water came, why the starfish came. For Yvonne, these were some of life's mysteries. She never was afraid, because her mother and father kept fear away.
But one family could not keep the water away. That was the job of the larger family of America. Yvonne doesn't blame anyone, though. She doesn't know about federal budget cuts and dereliction of duty. About presidential vacations and faked photo-ops.
In Yvonne's world, her parents did what they always did. They kept her safe. And they let her see the starfish.