Helen "Lainie" Breaux
When the hospital tending Lainie Breaux’s newborn son temporarily lost contact with her during Hurricane Katrina, Breaux used her fifteen minutes of fame to call attention to the plight of others devastated by the hurricane. Helene Waltzer Breaux grew up in New Orleans and earned a BA in communications from Boston University in 1988. She returned to her hometown to work in television. She taught special education in Jefferson Parish for several years, earned an MSW from Southern University, and worked for Covenant House as a family therapist and service coordinator before becoming the Jewish Enrichment Director at the New Orleans Jewish Community Center in 2002. In 2005 Breaux had just given birth to her second child, who had a breathing disorder when news broke that Hurricane Katrina was approaching. Told that it would be irresponsible to remove her baby from the hospital, she evacuated to Houston with the rest of her family. She lost contact with hospital workers when the levees broke. Breaux went into action, using the media to track down her child and finally locating her baby in Fort Worth moments before she was scheduled to appear on CNN. Since returning to New Orleans, she has resumed her career as a therapist with the Covenant House and in private practice.
Lainie talks about how her adoptive family came to settle in New Orleans, her childhood memories growing up in this area, and the Lakeshore Hebrew Day School she attended. She describes the Conservative summer camp she attended in Wisconsin. Lainie’s family belonged to Shir Chadash, a conservative synagogue in Metairie, Louisiana. Lainie attended Boston University, graduating with a bachelor's degree from the School of Communications in 1988, and then returned to New Orleans to earn her Social Work MSW from Southern University. Lainie's mother, Miriam Waltzer, is a retired appeals court judge and a holocaust survivor. Her father, Bruce, is also an attorney, was involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and went to jail during the Civil Rights movement. Through the House Committee on Un-American activities, agents came to the Waltzer home and threatened to take Joel away, claiming that the Waltzers were unfit parents if they did not stop their Civil Rights work. Lainie followed in the activist footsteps of her parents. She chose to go to social work school at Southern University, a historically Black institution, rather than go to Tulane University. In 2005, Lainie Breaux had retired from her position as Jewish Enrichment Director for Jewish Family Service New Orleans to give birth to her second son, Zachary. Zachary was born on August 23, 2005, two days before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Doctors told Lainie that her new baby needed to stay in the hospital for medical reasons. She explains that when the storm came, they had to make a decision to leave the baby in the hospital with excellent medical care or take the baby without medicine or a monitor. A nurse took a picture of Lainie’s husband Tad giving the baby a bottle before they reluctantly evacuated the hospital with their older soon. Lainie tells the story of how she reluctantly evacuated with her husband and older son, only to discover, when the levees broke and the hospital was evacuated, that there was no way to contact the nurses caring for her baby. Frantic, she mobilized a search, using CNN and other national and local media outlets to reunite with her baby, who had been evacuated to Fort Worth. She then used the visibility her story had given her to raise awareness and aid for those still trapped in New Orleans. Lainie explains her own emotions and the details of Zachary's and the family's journey over this harrowing week. Lainie's first return to the city and her search of her friends' homes is a vivid account. She expresses immense loss for her community, the lives lost and the damage done. Her mother and father lost their home, her brother lost his home, and so did many of her close friends. Much of her community lost everything, and they have not or will not return. Lainie discusses her attempt to return to normalcy since the storm. She lights the Shabbat candles at the school every Friday now and blesses the children and the bread. She is a trained social worker and has recently begun work with Jewish Family Services. She is also planning an annual Jewish film festival at the Jewish Community Center. Lainie describes struggling with life in New Orleans after the storm and imagines finding a new city with a Jewish community to move to and start over in. As of 2015, Breaux remains in New Orleans, where she works as a therapist.
