A Father’s Sacrifice, A Son’s Calling: How Hurricane Katrina Shaped Captain David Brittle’s Journey

In late August 2005, Captain David Brittle was not yet wearing a Salvation Army uniform. He was a young father with a wife, two children — one in diapers, the other just starting first grade — and a stable job with an armored car company in Burleson, Texas. But when his father, Major Richard Brittle, area commander of The Salvation Army in New Orleans, encouraged him to move closer to family in New Orleans, Captain David and his wife made the difficult decision to uproot their lives.

“We loved Texas,” David said. “But my dad wanted to be near his grandkids, and he and my mom had this huge house in Kenner. He said we could stay with them until we found our own place. We talked and prayed about it for months. Finally, we just said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Kenner, nestled on the edge of New Orleans, would become the setting for a story David could never have imagined. Just weeks after relocating, Hurricane Katrina barreled toward the Gulf Coast. The Brittles were still getting settled when David’s extended family gathered in New Orleans for a reunion. As forecasts worsened, his father urged everyone to leave early. David and his wife evacuated with their children to his sister’s home in Houston. It took 12 1/2 hours to complete the six-hour drive. Traffic was gridlocked, gas lines stretched for miles, and the tension was thick with uncertainty.

But David’s parents stayed behind. “My dad wasn’t going to leave,” David recalled. “He said people would be coming to The Salvation Army building, and they needed someone there. So, he packed up my mom and one of my uncles, and they went downtown to open the Center of Hope.”

When the levees broke the next day, floodwaters engulfed the city. Many residents had no means to evacuate — no cars, no money, and no place to go. “That’s something people still don’t understand,” David said. “There were three or four generations living in some homes. Public transit was how most people got around. You tell them to leave, but where are they supposed to go?”

By Tuesday morning, communication lines were failing. Phones were down. Panic was setting in. Then, sometime after 1 a.m., a pay phone in the flooded Salvation Army building rang through to David’s sister’s house.

“It was my dad,” David said. “He called just to say goodbye. You could hear it in his voice — he didn’t think he was going to make it.”

David couldn’t sleep after that call. Neither could his sister. By sunrise, they had packed up and driven straight to Louisiana, determined to find their parents. They arrived at The Salvation Army’s disaster response command post in Baton Rouge, where their uncle had been named incident commander. Most people weren’t allowed inside the inner workings of a disaster zone — but David’s family ties gave him access.

“My uncle said, ‘We’re sending a boat into the city. Do you want to go?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’”

They launched an airboat — the first 24-passenger model of its kind — off Interstate 10 and entered the drowned streets of New Orleans. What followed was two days of nonstop search and rescue through the flooded Garden District and surrounding neighborhoods.

“The smell was unbelievable. There were bodies in the water. We’d hit things — trees, cars, people. We didn’t eat. We didn’t sleep. We just kept going,” David said. “The darkness at night ... I’ve been camping, I’ve been out in the woods, but I’ve never experienced that kind of darkness. You couldn’t see stars. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. You could only hear the water hitting the boat.”

They encountered gunfire, roadblocks, and debris that made navigating nearly impossible. At times, David said they just started rescuing anyone they could reach. “We’d pull people out of homes, off rooftops, and drop them off wherever we could. It became about saving whoever we could get to.”

Eventually, their boat pulled up near the New Orleans Saints training facility, which had temporarily turned into a fueling station for rescue helicopters. Desperate, David walked into a military meeting uninvited and demanded help.

“I didn’t care. I was exhausted. I had no shame left,” he said. “I walked in and said, ‘Who do I talk to about getting people rescued?’”

Military police detained him in a conference room. Minutes later, by divine timing or sheer coincidence, an officer leading the meeting received a call. The person calling told the officer that while traveling on Air Force One with President George W. Bush, The Salvation Army’s national commander raised the Brittles’ circumstances. Suddenly, David had the attention of the very man who’d tried to kick him out.

“He got off the phone, pulled out a map, and said, ‘Where is the building?’ I pointed to it. He looked at me and said, ‘You need to leave, or I’m going to arrest you.’ I said, ‘I’m gone.’”

Soon after, helicopters landed on the roof of the Center of Hope. Major Richard, injured from a fall and still in his dress shoes, was the last to leave after helping more than 300 people evacuate. He, his wife, and David’s uncle were airlifted to the Cloverleaf drop-off site in Metairie. David arrived moments later, missing them by just 15 minutes.

When he finally made it back to the command post, his father was waiting.

“I don’t know how he knew, but he walked out and gave me the biggest hug of my life. I just started crying,” David recalled. “He said, ‘You were in New Orleans trying to find me?’ I told him I tried for two days. He said he’d never been prouder of me.”

But the story didn’t end there. The contaminated floodwaters Richard waded through in service to others carried a deadly cost. He contracted a parasite that led to a rare form of cancer. For two years, he fought for his life. He died at age 56.

David was by his side every step of the way. “I asked him if he would’ve done anything differently. He said no. Not a thing,” David said.

That sacrifice, his father’s unwavering dedication, changed David forever. Years later, he answered a call to officership with The Salvation Army. Today, he serves communities in crisis, walking with others through the very kind of pain his family endured.

“When people tell me they’ve lost everything, I can say, ‘Me too.’ But I also tell them, that’s not the end of your story,” he said. “You can start again. Look what God has done for me.”

Captain David’s story is one of devastation, faith, and unshakable love — for his family, for his calling, and for the people he serves. “I wouldn’t be doing this today if it weren’t for him,” he said. “It all started with Katrina. That storm changed everything.”