Then, there are the heroes..........

Sunnygal41

Posted on Thu, Sep. 01, 2005

BILOXI

'That boy is a hero': Rescue of family is silver lining for city

A 13-year-old boy in Biloxi, Miss., rescued his entire family -- 12 people, including his twin sister -- during Katrina's rage.

BY AUDRA D.S. BURCH

[email protected]

BILOXI, Miss. - In the long, harrowing moments before Katrina crashed into the east side of this coastal city, a dozen family members, friends and neighbors piled into the only bedroom of a wooden house.

Then they waited, and some drifted asleep. Suddenly, the water rushed in. It came fast, penetrating every wall and window. They retreated to a living room that yielded no protection from the five-foot tide inside the house.

The babies began screaming, the adults panicked and, in that moment, 13-year-old Phillip Bullard began saving lives. Four adults and nine children, including himself.

Phillip swam and cradled the youngest, a 1-year-old boy. He floated the oldest -- all through the house, out a broken front window and into a boat floating down what was once Holley Street. He coaxed his twin sister to turn loose the side of the house, which she clung to in terror. And he took the hands of his mother and grandmother and guided them through the house, on a path made from sodden furniture.

They were willing to die, unable to swim and too frightened to leave their home.

''I just didn't want to see my family drown,'' said Phillip, a seventh-grader who spent Wednesday in a shelter at Biloxi Junior High, which he normally attends. ``I was scared if I didn't keep helping, somebody would die.''

WORD SPREADS

Phillip's story hopscotched across town. Folks quickly learned about the boy who rescued his family, a bright spot in an otherwise dreary day in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

''That little boy is a hero,'' said Kenneth Brinson, who helped set up an outdoor community center near Main Street Baptist Church in the neighborhood where Phillip lives. Most of the day, Brinson cooked red beans and rice and smoked sausage for the hungry.

Phillip, a typical teenager who runs and jumps and dances and dreams, lives with his mother and grandmother on the east side of town, a collection of older A-frame homes in a mostly poor, mostly withered neighborhood. Almost from the very beginning, they knew the little house would fall to a storm with this kind of roar.

''I saw all the water and it was coming from everywhere. I swear it came through the floor,'' said Vanessa Posey, 44, Phillip's mother. ``I started screaming and trying to get everybody up. I broke the window and tried to put the babies on top of the bar. My son did most everything else.''

CLEARED THE WAY

Phillip, a soft-spoken boy who said he knew he wanted to be a police officer or doctor before the storm, says he went under water to clear a path to the window and then got his 25-year-old sister, Yoshico Posey, out. He picked her first because she was the only other person who could swim and help guide the rest out of the house. They formed a rescue team. He carried or floated each person out the window; she passed them to a neighbor who was helping, or put them in a boat they found drifting by.

Later, they used broomsticks to paddle down the street and sought haven in the upstairs loft of a neighbor's home.

''It felt like Phillip was in there getting people for hours,'' said Vanessa Posey, sitting outside the shelter. ``I just kept thanking the Lord for every person he got out.''

By the time Phillip finally swam out of the house, he found his twin sister clinging to the exterior wall of the house.

''She was scared. It took me awhile to convince her to let go and take my hand,'' he said softly. ``But I had to keep trying because she would not have made it.''

After everyone was rescued, Phillip took the boat to Division Street, a main thoroughfare, to find help. It never came.

And so the story that began at noon Monday in the earliest moments of Katrina's brief stay ended with Phillip in a shelter, nursing a foot cut by tin that his mother fears will become infected. This time, help is on the way.

''I just thank God for Phillip,'' the mother said. ``We would not be here but for the grace of God and the courage of my son.''

jgnat

Thanks, I really needed that. I think I am victim to some type of global mourning. I am having nightmares of black stadiums and children sleeping in the open.

Well, time to bake cookies. I have to do something.

AlmostAtheist

Yep, that same dull-eyed numbness that followed 9/11 is hanging over me. This is just what I needed to read.

Thanks so much!

Dave

Then, there are the heroes..........

Sunnygal41

'That boy is a hero': Rescue of family is silver lining for city

jgnat

AlmostAtheist

Sunnygal41

Ingenuous

kazar

Beachbender

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