Today, Nigel Tapp is a 911 operator and high school marching band drumming instructor. But in 2005, he was 4 years old, and told he had to evacuate because of Hurricane Katrina.
“I do remember not knowing, like what's going on,” he says. “Not knowing, like why do we have to leave?”
He comes from a large family in the Lower Ninth Ward. His cousin Yanada Essex remembers that many residents weren’t that concerned at first.
“When we were told we had to evacuate, many people just took three days of clothing and they thought they were gonna come back in three days. And we had no idea that it would take months and years for us to return,” she says.
But when the day came to leave, he remembers the panic as members packed the car and headed north.
“I could kind of remember just like everybody just moving really fast and me not knowing what to do.”
With a family as large as Tapp’s – 31 members to be exact – where they were headed to was still unknown. That was until some distant family in New Jersey stepped in.
“My aunt was like, you don't need to go anywhere else, you need to come to Montclair. You need to be with your family,” Essex remembers.
31 family members headed to Montclair, New Jersey. And as Essex recalled, the town took care of them. Community members provided housing, clothing, and helped them to enroll in schools. Tapp, who was one of the youngest, quickly started at the Montclair Community Pre-K.
“I remember the name Tillie,” he says, reflecting on his former classmate. “Just her being a real good friend, that was one of the first kids who came up and tried to be a friend to me.”
In school, he loved to play the drum, read books, and wear dress-up clothes. He’d play outside in the mud with Tillie and run around until his asthma acted up – he wasn’t used to cold weather. But Tapp doesn't just remember the warmth of his new classmates. He remembers the generosity of the entire town.
“One thing I remember vividly is like there was a store, CVS. Yeah. They found out that we were from New Orleans and we didn't have many things, and it was just like,. Whatever you need. Just like, just go and get it. Whatever you need”
But despite all the help from their new friends and neighbors, watching the news of what was happening in New Orleans was gut wrenching.
“When I seen the news, I didn't really want to look at it,” Tapp’s mother, Shelta Lewis, remembers. “Like seeing the city 'cause I started crying. Mm-hmm. My mama told me to leave the room 'cause I had started crying.”
Eventually Tapp, his mother and brother, moved back to New Orleans before the school year was over. As he tells it, his asthma got too bad in the cold weather, plus the family missed home. But when they returned, Lewis found their house destroyed.
“I had an icebox, the store, two beds, pictures, high school diplomas. It was in there.”
“We had a whole lot of stuff, honestly,” Tapp recalls. “It's a whole lot of stuff that you lose, that you don't realize that you're losing. And that you don't realize until you get back and it's gone.
But back in Montclair, Nigel's classmates and teachers couldn't stop thinking about him, and when they learned what happened to his home, they decided to do something about it.
Now I was also growing up in Montclair, New Jersey when Nigel came to town. And I remember him. His pre-k teacher, Ms. Marcie Chanin, had been my pre-k teacher a few years earlier, and we had remained close. With the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaching, I reached out to her. A few phone calls later and I was sitting in a studio, with Nigel, his family and Ms. Chanin, who joined us on zoom.
“I can’t stop looking at Nigel!” she squealed after entering the zoom meeting. She hadn’t seen him in 20 years.
Chanin remembers when Hurricane Katrina first made landfall.
“The kids were talking about Katrina before Nigel came in October and they were concerned about it and obviously their parents were concerned about what was going on and the lack of response.”
Then, Nigel joined the class.
“The fact that Nigel came just piqued their curiosity more so the kids gravitated to you so strongly. You were just outgoing and friendly and full of energy and fun.”
Chanin says that after Nigel left, the classmates couldn't stop talking about him. Then she had an idea.
“I was going to graduate school then, and something I was really interested in and as a teacher was how books can teach us about real things in the world, even for really young kids. After Nigel left, I thought, oh, we could write a book.”
And they did. The kids wrote down their memories of Nigel and what they missed about him. They also wrote about the hurricane, the destruction of his home and the devastation of the city. And of course they drew crayon illustrations to accompany their words.
“We needed to be careful 'cause we don't wanna scare children,” Chanin says. “But I think it's also important for children to feel like they are part of this world. They're citizens of this world, as young as they are, they have a right to know about it.”
Nigel remembers. He was back in New Orleans when he heard about the book, “Nigel and the Hurricane.” He even brought a copy to the studio.
“It was amazing hearing it 'cause it's like, someone cared about me enough to make me a book. And they cared about me enough to try to get these books sold and try to get these books out and that was really different for me, especially coming from losing everything at home.”
His cousin Yanada Essex remembers too.
“It was like, ‘Nigel is gonna have a book? Nigel and a hurricane? So it was just amazing hearing that the students were so creative and so thoughtful, and actually seeing the finished product, it was just so amazing to see everything that they put into the book.”
After they wrote the book, the students kind of went on a local book tour. They read and sold the book around town and used the money to fundraise for Nigel and his family. Chanin remembers.
“The local bookstore in Montclair called Watchung Booksellers,” she says. “I went to them and told them what was happening, we were trying to raise money. And they allowed me to sell the books in the store. And they also allowed us to do a book signing. So we all gathered outside with all the kids. And people would come up and then the kids would sign the books. And that was really empowering for the kids to feel like their books were interesting to other people. ”
And these classmates who missed their friends so much, they wrote a book about him, well, they haven't actually seen Nigel in 20 years…until now.
Chanin and I coordinated to get eight of Nigel’s old classmates to join the zoom call. He was completely surprised.
“I can’t believe this!” he said, seeing all their faces. “Oh my goodness.”
Himani Someshwar, Trin Caviness, Nick Kirkman, Mizia Wessel, Tobin Williams, Soph Plaut, Daniel Rosen, Tillie Ferguson and assistant teacher Ms. Melanie Constantino greeted their old friend. Many of them show off their copy of “Nigel and the Hurricane.” They still have it.
Quickly, Tillie Ferguson starts reminiscing about her old friend.
“I just remember feeling like best friends with Nigel. We had a lot of fun and played in the mud a lot, and so it's really cool to have that memory and to see you now.”
“I actually moved away from New Jersey when I was in second grade,” said Mizia Wessel. “And so those are like some of the best memories hanging out with Tillie and Nigel.”
Soon, the students are reflecting on the pages they wrote in the book. Nick Kirkman proudly recalls his illustration of Tapp playing the tone drum, which he calls “a prediction” after learning that Tapp became a drummer-turned-instructor for his high school marching band.
“My page was about after you left, 'cause we missed you,” recalls Trin Caverness. “Tillie and I would dig in the ground like, you know how sometimes kids would dig and they say, “we're digging to China,” and we would try to dig to New Orleans.”
Daniel Rosen remembers too.
“Well, I'm, I am thinking about my page, how after Nigel and his family went back, we would all line up and we would say, “Who is missing?” And, “Who is missing Nigel?”
“And I remember being just profoundly upset when he left and my parents having to explain to me that, ‘No, it's a good thing.’ And I was like, ‘No, but he's not here right in front of me, so it's bad.’ Like, I didn't have object permanence. It was like, Nigel, did not like, exist for me anymore and it was horrible.”
For Daniel Rosen, losing Nigel taught him about losing a friend. For Tobin Williams, the experience taught him about activism.
“Looking back, what always almost kinda amazes me is the way that us as kids, we combined the fact of us doing art and drawing and this book with something for the greater good in the community to help out you, Nigel…I mean, it obviously brings us together now and is something that we'll carry with us forever.”
Mizia Wessel remembers, “Maybe at the time not understanding exactly everything that was going on, but knowing we could show up for someone in our community and just like how special that was.”
“For me, Hurricane Katrina is contextualized in my experience with Nigel,” says Soph Plaut. “And I remember when Hurricane Sandy came, there was a ton of destruction and like, obviously my first thought was, ‘I remember Hurricane Katrina, I remember what Nigel went through and lost.’
“And so when we had people around us again, like having destruction or losing family members, it just all felt like this horrible thing. But now I understand and I also know that we can rally around people to help heal.”
Tillie Ferguson agrees. Nigel Tapp, she says, “is an anchor to my memory of this global event.”
But having a relationship with Nigel adds a gentler connotation to an otherwise tragic event.
“It’s a very heartwarming connection to somebody who was affected by it. And I think about it all the time. I have this book in my apartment in New York. And I always used to tell people I was a published author.”
Nigel was overcome with emotion.
“I feel heartfelt because you know, just having a community of people who cared for me at the time, and still care for me now, you know, that's kind of different. That's not something that everyone who was affected by that tragedy actually got to feel.
“Since they've been on the Zoom, I've kind of been at a loss for words. I'm honestly moved and I'm honestly touched by everyone being here.”
“The way our family works is if you do something for our family, you do something for all of us,” adds Essex. “So I just want to thank you all as young kids and as now-adults for all you've done to make Nigel feel welcome and special.”
“I think there had been a little part of me that was scared in the years since we wrote this book,” adds Soph Plaut. “ I don't know what happened to Nigel and I want him and his family to be okay…and so seeing you being okay and with your family and doing so well – there's a part of myself that I don't think ever could like, breathe easy until I knew that.”
“There are so many gaps in my childhood memory, “ says Nick Kirkman. “But I feel like Nigel and honestly just Ms. Chanin’s entire class will be like such a core memory that I remember that time even though I was still little… I think that shows how special it is.”
“I feel like it set a precedent for me that like what it means to help people is to like, is to do the work to help people,” says Plaut. “The work is not just getting the resources, getting funds. It's like putting yourself on the line and getting your emotions deep in it.”
“I think just the fundamental seed of like, ‘there's just nothing too small and no person too small to make even an effort,’” says Caverness. “And I feel like that just instilled something in me that made me realize, it's really just about doing what you can”
“The idea that nobody's too small. Even today. And these big things that are happening and we’re standing up for each other doing what we think is right.”
Chanin smiles, hearing all of her former students' reflections.
“You're never too small to make a difference.”
And then, as a class, they all read “Nigel and the Hurricane”
Nigel came to our class because he had a hurricane. A hurricane can make flash floods. The hurricane made the water come up so high
The people in New Orleans were on the rooftops so their heads didn’t go into the water.
So Nigel moved to Montclair and came to our school.
Everyday when Nigel came to school he loved to play the tone drum. Nigel liked to walk around the classroom wearing crazy dress-up clothes.
Nigel loved to look at books, especially The Enormous Potato
When he got used to rest time, then he would fall asleep and he wouldn’t wake up until the bus came, no matter how hard the teachers tried to wake him.
Nigel used to always play with Tillie
And Mizia!
He used to play with all of us. He’s a really nice boy!
Sometimes Nigel got asthma. He wasn’t used to cold weather.
After Nigel was here for a while, he and his mommy and his brother wanted to go back home.
Nigel, we love you and we’re very sad for you to leave.
After Nigel left, we dug holes on the playground and pretended to go to New Orleans
Now when we count the children in line we ask, “Who is missing?” and then we ask, “Who is missing Nigel?” Then we always say how much we love him.
When they came home Nigel’s mommy saw how after it was full of water, it was only wood. His house wasn’t there anymore.
Because the schools are too crowded, Nigel can’t go to school now. He misses school.
Class 13 wants everyone to remember about Hurricane Katrina
If someone you love went far away from you, would you stop loving them?
