Orkin office administrator RaQuen Cotton and her family survived Hurricane Isaac in 2012 with just the clothes on their backs. RaQuen lived in the New Orleans area her whole life and said she had never seen a flood like that.

“My husband was setting up the generator in the back yard because we weren’t sure what kind of effects we were going to have from the hurricane,” recalled RaQuen. “The kids were playing outside, then the dog started barking at the garage door. I opened the door, and there was water in the garage. I told the kids to come in, and that’s when I saw the cars that were driving down the street pushing a ton of water, and then I saw the generator my husband had just set up floating in the yard.”

RaQuen’s mother and grandmother lived in the house behind theirs, so RaQuen and her family couldn’t leave because RaQuen knew her relatives would come to her house. They couldn’t call because they lost phone service. Within minutes, RaQuen spotted her mother and grandmother walking through waist-high water to get to her house.

“We were being held hostage on the top of our sofa,” said RaQuen. “By the time my mom and grandma got there, we had to float the kids on an air mattress to higher ground. The water was still rising, but it wasn’t raining. It happened so fast.”

RaQuen, her husband and their three kids (then, ages 11, 10 and 5) stayed at RaQuen’s dad’s house in Reserve, La. for two weeks. There was no power in Reserve, La., but they were dry and safe.

“We were in the dark for two weeks,” she said.

It took the family a year to get back into their home. They had about 4 feet of water inside their home and had to totally gut it.

“It took us a long time to get back to ‘normal,’ said RaQuen. “Everything was a fight with the insurance company, but we had nothing left. We didn’t have any clothes, the kids didn’t have their school uniforms or supplies, and we had no furniture.”

At that time, Rollins employees collected money for fellow employees affected by the storm, but RaQuen said she didn’t realize money was being collected.

“Everything was such a blur,” she recalled. “I wasn’t always paying attention to everything and was in a daze, just trying to get our life back, so when the branch manager presented me with a check from the company, that was awesome. It was such a help. I wasn’t expecting it at all.”

They used the Rollins money for doors and door hardware – the interior garage door, the bathroom doors, bedroom doors and door locks.

RaQuen and family moved into a new home and sold their renovated home in the fall of 2014.