The bad news coming out of New Orleans 20 years ago this week was endless. And awful.
Videos of an entire city that looked like a giant had picked it up and dropped it into Lake Pontchartrain. People on rooftops waving frantically for help. The site of the Superdome in shreds.
At my home in Baton Rouge, just a couple of miles from LSU, the damage from Hurricane Katrina was minor but the impact of the disaster was still quite visceral. Ambulance sirens and the chopping of helicopter blades could be heard all day and all night as victims were being ferried out of the shattered city to LSU’s campus, which had become a temporary shelter for refugees from the storm.
Out of this slow-rolling nightmare, this ghastly parade of death and devastation, there were few positive stories to be found. But there was one in particular that emerged, and I was fortunate to get to write about it.
One of the countless questions that piled up like debris in Katrina’s aftermath was this: What happened to legendary New Orleans singer Fats Domino? The beloved musician still lived in the Ninth Ward neighborhood where he grew up, a region of the city that became famous for how devastated it was. Immediately following Katrina it seemed the then 77-year-old Domino had simply disappeared, another New Orleans icon lost to the storm and the flood it unleashed.
Fortunately, Domino was very much alive. Rescued from the balcony of his home, Domino was first brought to the shelter inside the ruined Superdome, then was transported to LSU’s Pete Maravich Assembly Center. There he was processed under his given name: Antoine Domino.
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Legendary musician Fats Domino, center. is helped off a boat by NOPD SWAT officer Trevor Reeves right, and a New Orleans Harbor Patrol officer left, as New Orleans is hit by Hurricane Katrina rescues on are brought to the St. Claude bridge in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans late on Monday night August 29, 2005. Alex Brandon | The Times-Picayune
LSU athletes were volunteering at the PMAC, helping distribute supplies. One of them was the quarterback who would be the Tigers’ starter in 2005, JaMarcus Russell. As it happened, Russell was dating Domino’s granddaughter at the time, so he was familiar with the face of the “Blueberry Hill” singer when he came across him inside the arena.
Soon, Domino and about 20 of his displaced family members left the PMAC to stay for two days in Russell’s suddenly stuffed-to-the-rafters off-campus apartment on Highland Road. By Friday, Sept. 2, four days after Katrina’s landfall, Domino and three carloads of relatives were getting ready to leave to take up residence elsewhere.
The world still didn’t know if Domino was alive. Before he left, Russell decided to call LSU sports information director Michael Bonnette, in effect breaking the news about the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s whereabouts.
“Fats Domino’s here,” Russell said.
Bonnette was incredulous. “What did you say?” he asked.
“Yeah, Fats Domino has been staying with me for two days,” Russell said. “We’re trying to keep it under wraps, but we wanted to let people know he was safe.”
Bonnette, beginning his 26th season as LSU’s SID when the Tigers play Saturday at Clemson, found then LSU athletic department photographer Steve Franz. The two rushed over to Russell’s apartment to get a photo of Russell clasping hands with Domino at his car window just before the music icon departed.
“Tell the people of New Orleans that I’m safe,” Domino told Bonnette. “I wish I was able to still be there with them, but I hope to see them soon.” With that, he was off.
The news that Domino had survived Katrina was one of the few bright spots in the wake of the terrible storm. The fact that one of New Orleans’ favorite sons was still around became a small symbol of hope that the resilient city would find a way back from the tragedy.
Domino died in 2017 at age 89, buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in the Gentilly section of New Orleans. Before heading back to Denver following Sunday’s preseason game with the Saints, former New Orleans and current Broncos coach Sean Payton took his team to lay a wreath at Domino’s tomb.
“We should know who Fats Domino is,” Payton said.
Domino’s post-Katrina story is also worth knowing, a pleasant memory from such a terrible time.