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Olga de la Vega is still having a difficult time coming to terms with the experience she has just lived through. She and her elderly parents were among the estimated 20,000 residents stranded at the New Orleans convention center last week waiting to be evacuated from a city submerged under water as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

“I can’t believe that a week and half ago I was driving to work and now life is up in the air,” said de la Vega, an accounts manager for the Belo station WWL-TV, a CBS affiliate, and a longtime New Orleans resident.

De la Vega said that she and her parents survived by banding together with 14 other city residents, including a pastor and his wife, as life at the convention became more dangerous by the hour. De la Vega, who fled Cuba at age 14, said she never imagined that one day she would witness such scenes of chaos and desperation in the United States. When the National Guard arrived, De la Vega and her parents were evacuated to Houston where her brother was waiting to take his sibling and parents back to his Miami home.

In recent days, NAHJ has spoken with several members and Latino media professionals from the New Orleans area since Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast. NAHJ has established the NAHJ Katrina Relief Fund to assist its members and their families who have been affected by the disaster. Also, in support of the National Association of Black Journalists, which has over 200 members located in the areas hit by Katrina, NAHJ will donate $1,000 to the NABJ Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund.

While de la Vega and her parents experienced a life threatening situation, the journalists NAHJ reached were doing reasonably well within the circumstances. Besides being displaced, most still have jobs, including de la Vega, and are now attempting to rebuild their lives.

Carlos Arredondo, the veteran chief meteorologist for WWL-TV, evacuated most of his family to San Antonio. Arredondo told NAHJ that he is fortunate. Recently remarried, Arredondo’s house was destroyed, but his wife had not sold the home she owned prior to getting married. The house is located in an area of New Orleans that was not flooded. They plan to move into that home. In the meantime, Arredondo is looking for housing so he can reunite with his family.

Arredondo said he is proud of the dedication of his colleagues. WWL-TV initially broadcast out of Louisiana State University and then moved to a PBS station in Baton Rouge. It was the only station in New Orleans to remain on the air since the hurricane hit the city.

“We took the worst and kept doing our job,” said Arredondo. “Many colleagues have not been able to go home. They just dove into their jobs even though they may have lost everything. They did not fall apart. I am proud that we did what we had to do.”

As Arredondo notes, journalists continue to cover the hurricane despite the difficult circumstances. Two young Latinos are sharing their hurricane experiences via the Internet. Samantha Perez and Jesus Diaz Jr. both provide detailed personal accounts of what they encountered during Hurricane Katrina on www.readthetattoo.com.

Perez’s “Hurricane Journal” is a multiple-entry diary describing her journey before and after Katrina and Diaz’s article retells his family’s experience being stranded at a hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Perez made it to Natchitoches, La., where she is currently attending school and Diaz is temporarily living with his family at his older sister’s home in Bristol, Conn.

Gina Cortez, an NAHJ member and a contributing writer for the Times-Picayune, is still in the New Orleans area. She is currently staying with a friend in St. Tammany Parish just outside of the city. Unlike the other journalists NAHJ spoke with, Cortez lost her job writing for the newspaper because of Katrina. She is currently seeking another job, but until then, she is unsure of her immediate plans.

NAHJ member Jannette Zorrilla, executive producer for the Fox affiliate WVUE-TV, said her station is working on returning to the air in New Orleans. She says WVUE continues to produce webcasts from Fox station WALA-TV in Mobile, Ala., where she has temporarily relocated with her colleagues.

Zorrilla and her husband are living in a hotel room, but she hopes to salvage her home even though she lives in a St. Bernard Parish neighborhood, one of the hardest hit flood areas in New Orleans.

“The hardest thing for me has been feeling disconnected from my home city,” Zorrilla told NAHJ. “When we were able to see the first pictures coming out of the city, as a journalist, it was hard to be so far away.”

NAHJ members and Times-Picayune staff Maria Montoya and Adrianna Garcia evacuated New Orleans before the hurricane arrived. Initially, they went their separate ways with Montoya and her fiancée traveling to Texas and Garcia to Mississippi. The two women, along with other Times-Picayune staff, initially worked from office space provided by Louisiana State University. The staff is now being relocated to rented office space elsewhere in Baton Rouge. The paper ceased publishing for only two days, but is now back to printing and publishing articles on its website.

“We have been circulating the newspaper by any means possible,” Montoya told NAHJ. “We have taken it to hotels and handed it out to evacuees and soldiers. Right now, we are doing it mostly by hand but we are working toward getting our circulation back up.”

Montoya and Garcia have been able to secure a rental home where they are living with four others. They have no furniture and are mostly sleeping on the floor. Housing in Baton Rouge is at a premium and has become difficult to secure now that LSU students are returning to school.

Montoya, who was to be married in November in New Orleans, called off her wedding due to Katrina. “It’s the least of my worries right now,” she said, “What matters is that I’m safe. If my fiancée and I can get through this, I know we’ll make it.”