Jake Weber, 24, moved to New Orleans in June 2004
to train as a chef. His mother Barb Schroeder, 57,
lives nearly 1,000 miles away in Grinnell, Iowa. A
week after Hurricane Katrina, she spoke to the BBC News website's
Richard Allen Greene.
He had a half a tank of gas. He knew [even] with a
good truck he couldn't probably make it, and he had a
truck that was starting to stall on him.
Jake Weber's tattooed arm offered his mother hope of identifying him
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He says, 'Mom, I know sitting in a truck with a
hurricane coming at the rate this one was, if I'm on
that road I won't have any luck. So we're going to
wait it out.'
Then he called me Sunday night and he says, 'Mom,
there's no gas and [the evacuation is] mandatory now.
How the hell are we supposed to get out'.
[After the hurricane,] I found a picture of his dog on
a rooftop on a website, sitting all by himself.
I did not know if my son had drowned and the dog was
sitting there because dogs wait for their masters or
if they had been airlifted out and they had to leave the dog.
That picture was taken on Tuesday. I heard nothing,
nothing.
I have a picture that's showing me the dog sitting in
the water and I don't know where my son's at.
Jake has tattoos, and in the back of my mind I see my
son's arms in a morgue. And I'm only going to be able
to identify him by the tattoos on his arms.
Friends were telling me they had to make themselves
turn away from the television.
I don't have that luxury. I'm looking for a face. I
just wanted to see my son's face.
I didn't have to talk to him. I didn't have to touch
him. I just wanted a face to know he's up and he's
walking.
But it never happened.
Unexpected call
And I stayed up north. I knew it would be horrible
down here. I did not want to get in anybody's way. And
I have friends saying, 'Get down there, drive down
there.' I couldn't.
He finally called me, and he goes, 'Mom'. First of all
he couldn't even talk. I knew it was him because he
used his cell phone and I saw 'Jake'.
When he called and I saw that number I had totally
given up, I really had.
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There's a sign: Emergency vehicles. Hell, if we aren't
an emergency vehicle, I don't know what is
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He says, 'Mom, we're OK. We've had water, we've had
food, we're in the French Quarter. The dog and the
cats are with us. We're all right. We're trying to get
out.
'But we're running out of food and we're running out
of water.'
I said: 'Jake, I'm coming down. I'm on my way.'
He said: 'You'd do that for me?'
I said: 'I've just been waiting for the phone call.'
He says: 'OK, you get in Mom mode and you get down
here.'
He called me Saturday at 2:30 in the afternoon. We
pulled out of Grinnell, Iowa at 5:30.
Mom mode got me within 20 miles - and nobody will let
me near him.
We get all the way to the parish line and we were told
to turn around and leave.
A cop says: 'You're blocking my road. Go.'
There's a sign: Emergency vehicles. Hell, if we aren't
an emergency vehicle, I don't know what is.
I've been sitting in Iowa so I won't be in anybody's
way and I'm down here because I heard from him and
they won't let me near him.
Circling like vultures
We don't know our way around here. We're trying to
figure out a way in.
We were turned away at four o'clock in the afternoon [on
Sunday]. We're exhausted.
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We're hearing of people getting ripped out of their
cars and the cars are getting hijacked so people can
get out of town.
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We're sitting in a parking lot and we start getting
circled by cars. They're circling us like vultures and
they are looking at us.
I haven't been afraid for my life in a long time.
So we move.
The police would not talk to us - this is not a
criticism, they are so overwhelmed and tired. One
woman came up to us and said: 'We can't help you.
We're sorry, but we can't.'
They shouldn't be doing this work - they should be
being taken care of themselves.
We go out looking for a place to stay and can't find
anything. So we come back one more time. We don't even
get the car turned off, I don't know where these cars
come from, they're right on us.
Barb Schroeder was finally reunited with her loved ones
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And they're circling us.
We put ourselves in harm's way trying to get a person
out of harm's way.
We got circled one more time, so we say: 'OK, either
we got to find a place to stay or we got to get out of
town.'
We go to get gas, and it's getting dark.
We've been on the road for 24 hours now, driving
straight down, turned away from two places that we
fought our way to get to. And we're getting circled by
cars.
We're hearing of people getting ripped out of their
cars and the cars are getting hijacked so people can
get out of town.
It's eight o'clock at night. Dead tired. No sleep.
All we wanted to do was get a family member out. We
had everything we needed. We just had to get him to
us.

Barb, her son Andy and her daughter Laura spent
Sunday night with an acquaintance of Jake's in Baton
Rouge, 70 miles from New Orleans. The next morning
they drove back to the city. Shortly after they spoke
to the BBC, they were reunited with Jake, who had
hitched rides to meet them. He, his girlfriend and
their pets were all fine.