In this fifth installment: Did a spirit send a boat to save his Bay St. Louis family during the raging storm surge of Hurricane Katrina?
- by Ellis Anderson 
Donald Acker and his mother, Augusta Acker, with Lionel's boat in front of Webb Schoolhouse, December 2005. Photo by Joe Tomasovsky. The boat actually arrived during Katrina on the right side of the steps and was later moved to create the planter.
The boat didn’t arrive at my house in the normal way, on a trailer. It sailed the streets of my town, borne by the greatest storm surge in American history. Coming to rest at my porch like some battered gondola from Venice, it carried four souls to safety, four names that would have been added to the long list of Katrina’s dead. Augusta thinks it was steered by a spirit.
Though some might call it a useless eyesore, it has a new life ahead as a shrine. Augusta has given me permission to make a planter out of it. She thinks it’s a fitting end to Lionel’s boat. 
August Acker with Lionel's Boat in front of Webb Schoolhouse in December 2007. Photo by Ellis Anderson
I didn’t even know who Lionel was until the end of September, almost a month after the storm had passed. Hungry for a hot meal, I went to the food tent in my neighborhood that’d been set up by volunteers.
I’d gotten my lunch and was looking for a seat when I ran into Augusta and Augusta-Inez. I embraced them with joy, but Augusta seemed confused at first. Her daughter had to remind her that I was “the Webb School lady.” I could understand the confusion. Even though they’d stayed with me for three days after the storm, they’d probably never seen me with my hair combed before. Augusta’s face lit up once she made the connection. We talked about the day of the storm. I admitted how frightened I’d been. “You know,” Augusta said. “I never was scared, that whole time. I’d prayed beforehand that the Lord would keep me from being afraid. Some people get heart attacks they get so frightened. I didn’t want that happening to me.”
She asked me what I was going to do with the boat. I explained that I wanted to make a planter out of it to commemorate the event. Although the boat seemed ruined, I was trying to track down the owners for permission. All I had to go on were the barely legible registration numbers.
“Why, honey, that’s our boat,” Augusta said. This was news to me. I had thought it was a stray. “Let me tell you,” she said. “The morning of the storm, Donald came and got me from my room. He said we got to get out now. I didn’t understand until my feet hit the floor and I was standing in water.” Donald works for the local power company. He and his brother, Steve, stayed with their mother during the storm. Donald’s teenaged son and nephew, Odis, were next door with Augusta-Inez. At first, Donald thought the street flooding was from the heavy rains. He decided to move the company truck to higher ground. He began to put on his shoes, but by the time he got them tied, the water outside had risen over the tires. In moments, it began to seep through the floors of the house. Donald alerted Augusta and then swam across to his sister’s house to help them evacuate. There, he had to break down the front door—the six feet of water had created a vacuum. Donald and Odis made their way back to Augusta’s, fighting a heavy current and driving rain that felt like “needles in the eyes.” Meanwhile, Steven helped Augusta down the front steps of her raised house, now covered with several feet of water. “He was going real slow,” Augusta said. “Just like I was a baby. Then Odis came back with Donald. He yelled, ‘I’ll give my life for my grandma!’ He grabbed me around the waist and tucked me under his arm like I was a piece of wood. He dragged me next door to my daughter’s house so fast, I still can’t believe it. It was like he was running across the top of the water.”
Reunited for the moment on Inez’s submerged porch, the family of six decided they had to set out for higher ground. Donald told his nephew and son to go on ahead, and the two boys swam towards Third Street.
The four adults thrashed and struggled in the current, the water well above the heads of the two women. Then Augusta looked back towards her house. “That boat was tied to the trailer in my yard,” she said, “but somehow it got loose and came out of the driveway. Then it made a sharp turn right towards us. "It wasn’t on one side of the street or another. It came right up the middle, just as smooth as you please. We all grabbed hold tight to the sides—we couldn’t get in, the water was too deep. "Then Donald turned around and saw a big wave headed our way. He was shouting, ‘Go, go, go!’” “We made it to the school,” Augusta told me. “The boys had beat us there and were up on the porch. We got up the steps, then the door flew open and this big man said, ‘Come in! Come in!’”
Jimmie ushered them into the house, while Donald stayed to tie up the boat in case the water kept rising and they’d need it again. He didn’t see his family go inside. He admitted later that he had a moment of panic when he reached the top of the stairs and they had all disappeared. The winds were so fierce, he wondered if they’d blown off the porch. Then the door opened again and Donald was pulled in to join his family.
But there was more to the story. Augusta continued, “That boat belonged to my son Lionel. He used to come over from New Orleans when he was free and use it out on the bay. He loved to fish. He’d just graduated, got his Ph.D. in business from Vanderbilt and was headed over one weekend. That was in 1981. He was bringing his three-year-old daughter—a beautiful child. They were driving across Lake Ponchartrain when a drunk ran them off the bridge and into the water. They both drowned. "That was in February, on Friday the thirteenth. It was thirteen days before they found his body, too. Thirteens all over the place." “I just never had the heart to get rid of that boat. It stayed in my yard for twenty-five years. Then when we were drowning in the street, water up over our heads, that boat floated right to us. Now how did that boat get untied off that trailer and come directly to us? I think my son Lionel did that.” Goosebumps rose on my arms in salute to the story. I wiped at my eyes with a rough paper napkin. People moving around us in the food tent ignored my tears. Public weeping wasn’t unusual these days. “So you keep that boat, honey,” Augusta said. “You go ahead and make your planter out of it. That’d be good, real good.” 
Lionel's son, Lionel Acker, Odis Clemons and Vincentine Acker, wife of the elder Lionel and mother of the younger in 2009. A few years after Katrina, Ellis commissioned a sign to honor the boat that saved four lives. Photo by Ellis Anderson
Lionel Acker with his father's boat in 2015. Photo by Ellis Anderson
Augusta Acker's 88th birthday party in 2015. She's surrounded by 8 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. L to R, top row: Candace Green, Tamara Green, Lionel Acker, Deborah Deloach, Brianna Deloach. Second row: Odis Clemons, Tiffany Green, Wanda Williams, Alex Acker (great-grandson). Photo by Ellis Anderson
Editor's note: Augusta passed away in 2017 at the age of 89. As for the boat itself, it slowly disintegrated and was hauled away in 2020.
Lionel Acker is a photographer and special education teacher in New Orleans. We're grateful for his help in publishing this chapter here in the Shoofly Magazine. Photo by Ellis Anderson
Under Surge, Under Siege is available in paperback and as an ebook.
In 2011, Anderson founded her first digital publication, the Shoofly Magazine and served as publisher from 2011 - 2022. She established French Quarter Journal in 2019, where she currently serves as publisher and managing editor. Anderson currently divides time between the New Orleans French Quarter and Mobile, Alabama.
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