By Kelly Morgan,Staff Writer
Twin Cities family members are looking for their mother, who lives in New Orleans.

LEWISTON – Katrina had come and gone, and Dean Libby hung up the phone Monday night knowing he would sleep because his mother, who lives in New Orleans, had weathered the storm.

There was 3 feet of water outside her home, and the 150 mph hurricane winds had torn off part of her porch and stolen away a couch, but 56-year-old Dorathy Cassidy was in good spirits.

“She was kind of laughing about it because they got through it pretty good,” Libby said, recalling the conversation. After nearly 16 years in the South, she had been persuaded by the storm that it was time to leave. “She was grabbing her pictures and whatever else she needed and coming home to stay.”

But when Libby woke up in the morning expecting a phone call about his mother’s travel plans, he instead learned a levee that held back water from Lake Pontchartrain had given way, sending the first surge of floodwater through nearby neighborhoods. Cassidy, who lived only a few miles away, has not been heard from since.

She may be listed under the last name of Roch, which is that of her common-law husband, her family said.

Libby, of Lewiston, and his siblings have joined a seemingly endless list of people in search of news about loved ones caught by surprise in the wake of one of the nation’s most devastating hurricanes. With no way to reach their mother by phone, Libby and his sister Anita Lewis of Auburn, and brother Russell Small of Lewiston have given hours to calling relief agencies, scouring the Internet and watching television news in hopes of finding any information.

“I had yesterday and today off,” Lewis said when reached at home Friday. “I have not moved from my computer. Or my TV.”

She has filled pages of a notepad with phone numbers and street names gleaned from watching the news and searching the Net. When she gets the name of a street in a flooded area, she enters it into a Web site that produces maps with satellite images. She then tries to figure out whether the street is near her mother’s home.

“In my best guesstimation, my mother is in the area that’s only flooded by 3 or 4 feet of water,” Lewis said. That gives her hope, but then the news of shootings, lootings and rapes has been discouraging on another level.

Small said he had to turn off the news Thursday.

“I’m disgusted by the human race,” he said, referring to all the lootings and rapes. “I just feel helpless. It’s my mother, and there’s nothing we can do.”

He had tried to call state and local police in Louisiana and New Orleans to get help before Katrina hit. Even after learning about her heart problems and bad back, there was nothing either agency would do.

Lewis said Cassidy had gone to the Louisiana Superdome, only to learn people had been standing in line for as many as five hours. She went home because she expected a 10-hour wait.

The family had tried to wire money to their mother Sunday, but even before Katrina hit, stores were boarded up and she had no way to get the cash.

Libby said Friday that he has been living on coffee and cigarettes, the two televisions in his house being left on until he finally tries to sleep at night.

“I would just like to find out where my mother is. That way, if she’s still alive, I can get her out,” he said.

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