One loss among many after Katrina

As time passes after the destruction incurred by Hurricane Katrina and life for those affected begins again, the stories of those who lived it start to surface.

For Lori Eldridge, a fourth year UB graduate student working on her doctorate in anthropology, Hurricane Katrina was more than just another event in the news. Eldridge lost her cousin and childhood playmate not to the storm, but to the struggle that followed when he tried to help others who lost everything to Katrina's wrath.

Brady T. Eldridge was living in Baton Rouge working for Global Industries Inc. of New Iberia as an underwater welder for oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

After the storm, Brady spent some time helping his mother, Meridith Leanna Eldrige, also a resident of New Orleans, get back on her feet after a large oak tree fell on top of her house. He received a call letting him know he could return to work, but seeing the devastation around him, decided to help out.

According to a brief e-mail he sent to his father, Paul Eldridge, who resides in Paris, Brady and others attempted to volunteer in one particularly ravaged area, but were turned away by police to prevent disorder. Instead, he helped out through the Wildlife and Fisheries Department of New Orleans.

"I went on a rescue mission through the Wildlife and Fisheries Department on boats to evacuate people from their homes, I can't even describe what I saw," Brady wrote in a brief paragraph to his father the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 6.

It is not known exactly what Brady saw, or what he was doing in the relief efforts. There is speculation that he was pulling dead bodies from the water along with assisting evacuees.

Karma wasn't on Brady's side. After a day of volunteering, Brady suffered from sudden heart failure, finally passing away at Baton Rouge General Hospital on Wednesday, Sept. 7.

Brady left behind his fianc?(c)e, Kelli Simmons, of New Orleans.

"For me, it's not something you're expecting to hear 15 minutes before walking into class," said Lori, whose brother called her with the news.

Lori and Brady, both 29, were a month apart and friends as children. Lori said she wasn't surprised to hear that Brady was involved with relief efforts, because he always had a take-action personality, with a special interest in natural disasters.

"He felt like he needed to do something," Lori said of her cousin. "He definitely lived life in every capacity. He was out there swinging in the trees before any of us cousins got up the tree."

Travis Zimmer, a long-time friend of Brady's for the past 21 years, said Brady was always the life of the party.

"Brady was a person that brought excitement and positive energy everywhere he went," Zimmer said via email. "He led his life the way it should be lived, he laughed the loudest, left everyone with a smile; he was completely original, and he was unafraid of risk."

Lori said her last memory of Brady is a night out in the French Quarter of New Orleans a few years ago; she recalled that he kept her and her brother laughing the entire time.

"People thought a lot of him, he had kind of an infectious personality," she said. "He was fearless."

Her best childhood memory with him is making mud balls out of firecrackers and throwing them up in the air, creating a spectacle of lights, sparks and loud noise.

"It's kind of suiting to him," Lori said. "Memories change when you don't have those same people to share them with."

Lori said her cousin's death is a reminder that her family isn't the only one experiencing loss as a result of Katrina.

"It's our family's loss, but it's a loss within a much larger loss," she said. "There are so many other families going through similar losses."

"It underscores how many people are experiencing these losses all the time. We can often push it aside until we experience it ourselves," she continued. "Our actions are intrinsically related to other people, all the time."

Those close to Brady Eldridge will continue to be inspired by his life choices.

"Being in Brady's life you were consistently reminded that life is full of possibility," Zimmer said.