Teen Girl Was Separated from Her Mom in Hurricane. Reuniting with Each Other Took Years

When PEOPLE first spoke with Hurricane Katrina survivor Emani Scott in 2005, she was a 13-year-old girl staying at a West Virginia military base with her younger brother Emanuel and grandmother Jerilynn. Although they were together, the family had been separated from Emani’s mother and her 10-month-old sister Jermani, who had ended up somewhere in Texas, though the rest of the family didn’t know that at the time.

“We cried and prayed. I thought they’d find my mama and bring her to West Virginia,” Emani said at the time. “When she didn’t show up and we didn’t hear anything, we got more worried.”

Fortunately, their story did have a happy ending: just months later, Emani found her mom and baby sister, and they began talking on the phone. It would still take about two more years before they could reunite in person.

The family’s survival instincts kicked in 20 years ago when they left their home near the French Quarter and headed to the Moriel Convention Center for shelter. The only items Emani took with her were clothes and a pink portable CD player.

“It was the first one that I had gotten,” Emani, now 33 and a mother of two, tells PEOPLE. “I had begged for one for a long time.”

When they arrived at the convention center, they saw chaotic scenes. People were crowded together, there were no lights, and the restrooms were dirty. What stood out most to Emani was the extreme heat and the fact that people were dying around them.

Those at the shelter were also scared about the possibility of floodwaters rushing in. “It was chaotic,” she says. “That whole panic mode of the crowd went on for a few hours before we realized, ‘Okay, y’all, there’s no water.'”

Around the fifth day, military personnel arrived and said that helicopters would evacuate residents, starting with women and children.

After the military explained how many people they could take, the family had to make a choice. Emani’s mom and Jermani evacuated together, while Emani, Emanuel, and their grandmother stayed together. At the time, Emani says they assumed their separation would be brief.

Emani saw her mom and baby sister board a helicopter bound for Texas, while another helicopter later took Emani, her brother, and their grandmother to West Virginia’s Camp Dawson. There, they had their first hot shower and real meal since the disaster.

While at the military base, Emani searched for her mom’s whereabouts every day. Later, a family in West Virginia who had heard about Emani’s story took her, Emanuel, and their grandmother in to live with them.

After a couple of months, with help from a friend, Emani reconnected with her mom, also named Jerilynn, and her baby sister. She learned that her mom had been stationed in Kingsville, Texas, and spent much of the time apart trying to find housing and emergency assistance.

Emani says it was hard for her mother in Texas. It took time to get set up in a new apartment because “she had no resources, she had no money.”

“She did have food stamps so they could eat and she was job searching,” Emani adds.

About two years later, Emani and her brother finally reunited in person with their mom and sister, who was no longer the 10-month-old baby they had last seen.

When Emani went to reach for her sister, she remembers her hiding behind their mom, acting like, “Who is this lady coming to me trying to pick me up? I don’t know her.”

Still, Emani says, “we were just happy. We were finally back together.”

“That just felt really, really good,” she adds.

The family stayed in Kingsville for a few more years before moving back to New Orleans, where their mom resumed working at a bar. Today, Jermani is a student at Drexel University, and Emanuel works in security at a VA hospital. Sadly, Grandmother Jerilynn passed away in 2010.

Emani became a teacher, earned her master’s in secondary education, and is now working on another master’s in data analytics and programming evaluation. She is also a single mom raising two daughters, ages 6 and 8.

Now, 20 years later, Emani says the one thing she wants everyone to know is, “We’re survivors.”

“We’re strong,” she adds. “And if nothing else, this should be a moment that we remember that about ourselves.”