by Kate Messner
Dave Lewald, who was in command of the waterborne contingent of the US Coast Guard’s response in New Orleans, provided helpful information about the days that followed the storm, and Coast Guard rescue swimmer Sara Faulkner shared her amazing Katrina rescue stories with me as well. Thanks, too, to the curators at the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum and Presbytère for answering my many questions. The following sources were also helpful in my research:
American Rescue Dog Association. Search and Rescue Dogs: Training the K-9 Hero. 2nd ed. New York: Wiley Publishing, 2002.
Brinkley, Douglas. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. New York: William Morrow, 2006.
Fothergill, Alice, and Lori Peek. Children of Katrina. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2015.
Horne, Jed. Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City. New York: Random House, 2006.
Levitt, Jeremy L., and Matthew C. Whitaker, eds. Hurricane Katrina: America’s Unnatural Disaster. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.
60 Minutes. “The Bridge to Gretna.” December 15, 2005. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-bridge-to-gretna/
Wilkinson, Lynette Norris. Untold: The New Orleans 9th Ward You Never Knew. New Orleans: Write Creations, 2010.
Kate Messner is the author of The Seventh Wish; All the Answers; The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z., recipient of the E. B. White Read Aloud Award for Older Readers; Capture the Flag, a Crystal Kite Award winner; Over and Under the Snow, a New York Times Notable Children’s Book; and the Ranger in Time and Marty McGuire chapter book series. A former middle-school English teacher, Kate lives on Lake Champlain with her family and loves reading, walking in the woods, and traveling. Visit her online at www.katemessner.com.
Rescue on the Oregon Trail
Danger in Ancient Rome
Long Road to Freedom
Race to the South Pole
Journey through Ash and Smoke
Escape from the Great Earthquake
D-Day: Battle on the Beach
Hurricane Katrina Rescue
Everyone says the Titanic is unsinkable, and Patrick Murphy believes this most of all. He works at the shipyard where the Titanic was built, and he’s even going on its maiden voyage! Ranger meets Patrick before the Titanic sets sail. One night, the ship hits an iceberg and starts to take on water, and then it’s a race against time to evacuate passengers before it’s too late.
Keep reading for a sneak peek!
Patrick and Ranger hurried up to the deck. Everyone was talking at once.
“Is everything all right?”
“Why have we stopped?”
“It’s fine,” one of the crewmen told a group of passengers. “You can go back to bed.”
Some people returned to their cabins. Others huddled in their nightgowns on the deck.
“It was an iceberg, I tell you,” someone said. “Saw the huge white mass myself when I looked out my porthole. Like a mountain on the sea.”
“Come on, dog,” Patrick said, hurrying toward the bow of the ship. Ranger followed Patrick, but the fur on his neck prickled. The air smelled icy and fishy and dangerous. Then Ranger felt something cold under his paw. He barked and stepped back.
Patrick bent down, picked up a chunk of ice, and sucked in his breath. “We must have hit ice,” he whispered. He looked out into the darkness and tried to stay calm. This ship was designed to sail through icy waters, he reminded himself.
Sure enough, the engines chugged to life, and the ship started moving.
Patrick let out a whoosh of breath. “See, dog?” he said. “Everything is fine.”
Then the engines stopped again.
Two firemen came rushing up the steps. “She’s flooding!” one of them shouted.
“Go wake the first-class passengers,” an officer told Patrick. “Get them up to the boat deck in their life jackets. Tell them it’s just a precaution. We don’t want to alarm them.”
Patrick hesitated. “Is there cause for alarm?”
The officer only pointed down the stairs. “Follow the order you’ve been given.”
Patrick and Ranger hurried downstairs. They rushed up and down the first-class hallways. Ranger barked. Patrick pounded on cabin doors to wake people up. He helped them into their life jackets and sent them up to the deck.
“Is the ship actually taking on water?” one man asked Patrick. “Have you seen it for yourself?” He looked around his warm, dry cabin.
“No, sir,” Patrick said. “But I’ve been told that everyone must head up to the boat deck now.”
The man sighed. He pulled a coat on over his nightclothes and followed Patrick and Ranger down the hall and up the stairs.
When Patrick finished waking the first-class passengers in the hallway he’d been assigned, he ran downstairs to see the damage for himself. It would be on the lower levels of the ship, near the mail room and one of the boiler rooms. Ranger followed him, but with every flight of stairs they descended, the air smelled more dangerous. Like wet metal and seawater and ice.
Text copyright © 2018 by Kate Messner
Illustrations by Kelley McMorris, copyright © 2018 Scholastic Inc.
This book is being published simultaneously in hardcover by Scholastic Press.
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While inspired by real events and historical characters, this is a work of fiction and does not claim to be historically accurate or portray factual events or relationships. Please keep in mind that references to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales may not be factually accurate, but rather fictionalized by the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Messner, Kate, author. | McMorris, Kelley, illustrator. | Messner, Kate. Ranger in time.
Title: Hurricane Katrina rescue / Kate Messner ; illustrated by Kelley McMorris.
Description: New York : Scholastic Inc., [2018] | Series: Ranger in time | Summary: When the mysterious first aid kit takes golden retriever Ranger to New Orleans shortly before Hurricane Katrina hits, he finds himself helping Clare Porter and her grandmother, who are waiting for Clare’s father at their home in the Lower Ninth Ward — and when the levees break and Clare is separated from Nana, Ranger must somehow get her to the relative safety of the Superdome, and reunite her with her family.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017047764
Subjects: LCSH: Hurricane Katrina, 2005 — Juvenile fiction. | Golden retriever — Juvenile fiction. | Time travel — Juvenile fiction. | Families — Louisiana — New Orleans — Juvenile fiction. | Adventure stories. | Ninth Ward (New Orleans, La.) — Juvenile fiction. | New Orleans (La.) — History — 21st century — Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Hurricane Katrina, 2005 — Fiction. | Golden retriever — Fiction. | Dogs — Fiction. | Time travel — Fiction. | Family life — Louisiana — New Orleans — Fiction. | Adventure and adventurers — Fiction. | New Orleans (La.) — Fiction. | GSAFD: Adventure fiction. | LCGFT: Action and adventure fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ10.3.M5635 Hu 2018 | DDC 813.6 [Fic] — dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017047764
First printing 2018
Cover art by Kelley McMorris, © 2018 Scholastic Inc.
Cover design by Ellen Duda and Maeve Norton
e-ISBN 978-1-338-13397-4
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