By Jackie Adams
CNN.com Producer
Ricky Mathews knows first-hand what it’s like to ride out a catastrophic hurricane.
In August 2005, the publisher of Biloxi’s Sun Herald newspaper, says he made “one of the worst decisions of his life” when he and his family stayed in their home to ride out Hurricane Katrina.
Today, as Hurricane Ike takes aim at the Texas coast, he’s been up since 3 a.m. responding to emails and phone calls from people in Galveston, Texas, who read a powerful editorial and video he posted on the newspaper’s Web site, SunHerald.com. In the article’s title, he urges, “Galveston: Get Out!”
One of the emails he received was from a 17-year-old in Galveston who was scared and begging his parents to evacuate. Mathews has received dozens of other emails and calls from Texas residents who want to know just how bad things were during Katrina.
The Mathews’ home was located in Biloxi’s Back Bay area and about 25-feet above sea-level. “It wasn’t high enough,” Mathews says in a video posted on SunHerald.com. “We had 5- to 10-foot waves hitting my house for three hours. It was the worst decision I ever made as a father and as a husband.”
As the water quickly surrounded their house, Mathews remembers looking at his family and as the reality set in — everyone started to cry. In the video he reads an excerpt from a new book he’s writing about his experience.
“I can remember the exact moment of Hurricane Katrina when my family’s lives flashed before my eyes and that exact moment when the water started to enter my house … the waters raging around my house … I looked at my crying family and thought ‘God, help us.’ I have never felt closer to God or my family in my life, absolutely nothing else mattered at that point — other than my family.”
During Katrina, Mathews said he prayed to God that if he made it out safely, he would do whatever he could to help save the lives of other people who underestimate the power of storms.
In the SunHerald.com video, Mathews issues a plea to the residents of Texas, “Do not put your family in harm’s way. Please, if you live anywhere near the surge zones … Get out while you can.”
While he realizes that the window of opportunity is shrinking for people to leave, Mathews hopes that people will heed the warnings and at least try to make it to higher ground.
Mathews and his family were some of the lucky ones who survived Katrina. Since then, he’s kept the promise he made to help others. Mathews says he helped form a Mississippi governor’s commission on hurricane recovery and led a delegation to Galveston to meet with 500 community leaders about the impact of hurricanes on coastal communities.
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