The day before she headed off to Mississippi to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, Margaret Ecker, an educational director at Saint John’s Health Center, auditioned for the Los Angeles Bach Festival Chorus and landed a part.
The following morning, Monday, Sept. 12, the 56-year-old nurse flew a commercial airline into Jackson, Miss., along with three co-workers, and cramped in a small sedan, proceeded down Interstate 55 to Poplarville, a town of 2,600 residents located in southern Mississippi, a rural community popular among New Orleans retirees.
Weaving between debris, the Saint John’s nurses used highway mile markers and a map to determine their whereabouts, since Katrina had claimed most posted signs. The nurses attribute their success in locating the Pearl River County & Hospital Nursing Home to a healthy combination of guess-
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 26, 2005. Read the original PDF.