Spring Break
Evacuee calls Aggie couch home
By: Kimberly Thomas
Issue date: 10/11/05 Section: News
 Marc Brubaker - The Battalion Junior business administration and marketing major Nivida Interiano, a transfer student from the University of New Orleans, studies in the MSC. |
People are always telling Nivida Interiano, "At least you're alive."
Interiano, a junior business major, transferred to Texas A&M from the University of New Orleans (UNO) and is living on the couch of two Aggies after evacuating before Hurricane Katrina, the Category 3 storm that devastated New Orleans, made landfall.
"It feels like it was all a bad dream that I'm having a hard time waking up from," she said. "What I'm most upset about are the pictures. I don't have any pictures of me, no birthday or graduation pictures, no memories of me."
Interiano's family lives in New Orleans, and she said her house was completely flooded and that mold now resides on the walls and furniture.
"It is hard (to lose everything) when you have seen your parents work so hard," she said.
Interiano, her two brothers and her parents evacuated to College Station because it was the closest place with an available room, she said. After four days in College Station, she and her family went to Spring to stay with an uncle. Interiano said she was registering her brothers in high school when she ran into an Aggie Mom, Gail Theriot, also registering a family member.
Annie Theriot, a senior mechanical engineering major, said her mother called her to ask what A&M was doing about Katrina victims because she knew someone who needed to go to school.
Interiano said she never expected Gail Theriot to call her back, but she did and she brought her to College Station to register for classes. Interiano was assigned to a dorm, but she said it was disgusting, so Gail Theriot called her daughter to ask her if Interiano could live with her.
Annie Theriot agreed and let Interiano stay on her couch.
"Sometimes when I have an early class, I sleep downstairs and let her have my bed," Annie Theriot said.
Stefanie Brister, a senior mechanical engineering major, said she did not have a problem with Interiano living with them for the semester because she knew she would want someone to do it for her in the same situation.
"I was just worried about the shower," Brister said. "One shower, three girls, but it actually hasn't been an issue."
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