Michelle Gibson fled her home in New Orleans with her newborn son, her 6-year-old daughter and her boyfriend as Hurricane Katrina took aim at the city 20 years ago.

She never returned there to live. But she brought New Orleans dance traditions to her new home in Dallas, teaching energetic “second line” techniques rooted in jazz funerals and other street performances to students at Southern Methodist University.

"When I left home, I didn't leave home. I took home with me," Gibson said.

The flight from Katrina’s deadly winds and flooding scattered thousands of evacuees across the nation. A month after the storm, USA TODAY reported in 2005, FEMA aid applications poured in from every corner of the map. Refugees had found shelter from Houston to Chicago, Los Angeles to New York City.

Within

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