Katrina Survivors Meet Miracle Dolphins

Aug. 16, 2006 — -- As the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, signs of hope are welcome.

Nowhere are they more abundant than with the "Miracle 16" dolphins, giving reason to smile to some of the hurricane's human victims.

As the hurricane approached, half of these dolphins were evacuated from their home at the Gulfport, Miss., Oceanarium to hotel pools on high ground.

Eight had to stay behind, and eventually they disappeared.

"From all the stories and accounts of the way the storm hit, we believe the water rose and a big wave knocked out their show pool," said Teri Corbett of the Marine Mammal Operations at the Atlantis hotel in the Bahamas.

"How they got out, who knows?"

Two weeks later, all eight dolphins, including two mothers and their babies, were spotted alive and together.

"A few of them got beat up," Corbett said. "They looked like they had some puncture wounds around the body. They were dehydrated. Looking for food, they found heads of a hammer, heads of a golf clubs, just general garbage."

The directors at the Atlantis Paradise island resort in the Bahamas heard of the dolphins' plight and offered to give them a new home.

After a grueling transport, which spanned two days and hundreds of miles, all sixteen dolphins were reunited.

Hotel directors started a program to unite the dolphins with their two-legged counterparts: human families with young children who had survived the same hurricane.

That's how 17 families who had survived Katrina were invited to the hotel last week for a swim with a fellow survivor.

Barbara Riley and her grandnieces were thrilled to travel to Atlantis to meet the dolphins.

They spent eight days in the Superdome last summer, so seeing the dolphins was an inspiration.

"For me, it was the same as what we did. It was a struggle. You know, tossed and turned," Riley said. "And they were rescued."

A year later, the dolphins still have the scars of Katrina. Toni sustained the most visible injuries: scars on her back and a cut on her dorsal fin.