Greg Brooks' Family Missing in Louisiana

[HoosierCat]

per hobson...I hope they made it through OK...

Greg Brooks hasn’t heard a word from his mother, his grandmother, and “Little Greg,” who turned three Tuesday, the day New Orleans floated in the remains of the nation’s worst hurricane in more than a century.

Police didn’t find anything or anyone at his house except water and now Brooks, the Bengals’s second-year cornerback, can only watch CNN and play football because he can’t sleep.

This is one of those few times the game is dwarfed by the elements, and not the other way around.

“I know my Mom. I’d have heard something by now,” said Brooks after Wednesday’s practice. “She knows I’d be worried about Little Man.”

[Bengal Joe]

I cant imagine what he must be going through.

[GROIIIDayton]

We all need to prey for his family.

[HoosierCat]

more from hobson...damn...

The Bengals found themselves caught in nature’s strange vortex of coincidence and randomness when five players coped with disaster 1,000 miles away. Pro Bowl right tackle Willie Anderson heard from his people in Mobile, Ala., and they are fine. Reggie Myles, 10 football fields away from the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, hasn’t heard a word. Neither have the trio of New Orleans natives Brooks, Tory James, and Chris Henry.

“You keep hearing the same thing and the news is all bad,” said James, 32, the Pro Bowl cornerback. “I’ve heard from my wife, but nothing from my parents. I don’t care about my house or anything like that. I don’t know how it is. I just want to know about my people and all the people down there. I mean, there’s nowhere to go. That’s the thing. No matter where you are down there, there is no place to go.”

It’s not always just a game.

Eric Ball, the club’s director of player relations, sagged in his office late Wednesday afternoon after dealing with the emotion. He is always the man with the answers, but on Wednesday he had no answers. No cell phones. No roads. No contacts as the United States Government began to respond to a crisis of a Third World dimension.

The best thing Ball could do is what he always does first, and that’s offer the calm voice of reason. Myles, who has heard that dead bodies are floating through his hometown of Pascagoula, Miss., was ready to get on a plane to find his parents, Mae and Jimmie Myles. He says he’s not playing Friday night because of an abdominal pull, but Ball suggested that he might be only getting in the way down there, and how would he get there from the airport, and . . .?

“I just want to hear their voices. That’s all I care about,” said Myles, 25, the fourth-year safety who last talked to them two days ago.

That’s about when Henry touched base with his mother and 16-year-old brother. They were fine after the hurricane hit and had planned to hit the road in the evacuation the next day from Plaquemines Parish on the West Bank. Henry, 22, the rookie wide receiver, was pensive as he sat in front of his locker after practice.

“I’m just thinking what to do,” Henry said. “They said where I live is wiped out. There’s nothing left. It will take months to clean it up. No school. (His mother and brother) may come here and stay with me in Ohio.”

Brooks, 24, last talked to his mother on Saturday. He has since talked to his aunt, who told him that his 75-year-old grandfather who lives in the city of New Orleans had been rescued from a helicopter as he climbed through an opening in the roof near the second-floor bathroom.

“She didn’t say too much,” Brooks said. “I don’t think she wanted me to worry. She said he had a lot of water in him. . .It seems like its getting worse by the hour.”

Worry? It’s all Brooks has been doing for the past few days. His mother stopped by his house in Kenner to get away from the storm, but he says Lake Pontchartrain, unable to hold some of its levees, “is right in my backyard.”

But it’s also right off the I-10 expressway, headed to Baton Rouge, a perfect spot to get on the road and that’s where thousands have been stranded. They could be there, but Brooks thinks his mother would have found him by now. But then, the only mother who won this one was Mother Nature.

It’s ironic that this was the week of all weeks that Brooks made his long awaited return to the practice field. After pulling a hamstring in his rookie training camp, he ended up on season-long injured reserve. Then, on the first day of contact in full pads this year, he caught his hand in a face mask and broke it on the first live special teams drill of the year.

“It’s a good thing I’ve got football now. It at least keeps my mind thinking about it for the few hours I’m here,” Brooks said.

James, who turned the tide of a game last year eight times with interceptions, can only do what is so foreign to athletes. Wait to hear on something they can’t control.

“There’s nothing you can do,” James said. “There’s just nowhere to go.”

Brooks, waiting to be called “Daddy,” again by the kid that goes by “Little Greg,” is thankful for one thing.

“I’m glad I have it,” he said of football on one of those days the game took a supporting role.

[membengal]

We all need to prey for his family.

or even pray for them, because i don't think they can handle being hunted/stalked by bengalszone members right now.

[membengal]

And, by the way, I cannot imagine how the NFL and college guys are keeping any kind of focus on the field who have loved ones they have not heard from down that way. Memphis, like SA as SA Bengal mentioned in another post, has caught a lot of NO refugees, and it's hard to do anything down this way but think about their pain and anguish. The death count is going to end up being frigteningly high, and I am not entirely sure how NO is ever going to be the same, not to mention those small towns that just disappeared along the gulf coast of Mississippi.

Thoughts and prayers and all that.

[Spain]

Katrina was a bitkh that was for sure, destroying my second favourite city!

[The_Next_Big_Thing]

Katrina was a bitkh that was for sure, destroying my second favourite city!

Hrmn... a city known best for women flashing their titties and drunken revelry hit and destroyed by an act of God. Where have we seen this before?

[redsbengalsbucks]

Hrmn... a city known best for women flashing their titties and drunken revelry hit and destroyed by an act of God. Where have we seen this before?

Good point hadnt thought of that

[mtmeece]

Hrmn... a city known best for women flashing their titties and drunken revelry hit and destroyed by an act of God.  Where have we seen this before?

Good point hadnt thought of that

So you think that Katrina was an act of God??? such a shame that people chose to find either a politician to blame or the victims them selves.

[The_Next_Big_Thing]

Hrmn... a city known best for women flashing their titties and drunken revelry hit and destroyed by an act of God.  Where have we seen this before?

Good point hadnt thought of that

So you think that Katrina was an act of God??? such a shame that people chose to find either a politician to blame or the victims them selves.

Yes, I believe such things as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, etc. are acts of God. Ask your insurance guy, I'm pretty sure he will agree.

This hurricane demolished the foremost American party city and the new Las Vegas of the Southeast, Biloxi.

I'm not saying I know it was God sending a message, but it could be....