Caring for the newborns:

First came the rising floodwaters, and the pregnant woman started praying.

Please, she said to herself, please don’t let me give birth to my twins in this hot, dark attic surrounded by water. Finally, using a crowbar and hammer, friends pried open the roof and she made her way out by a leaky boat.

Then came her dramatic delivery.

After a few days in the Superdome, an ambulance rushed the woman out of the chaos toward a waiting helicopter. But before she arrived, Dwight and Dwayne entered this world – 9 pounds in all – one month early. "It was a miracle," their mother, Antoinette Hickerson, says with a still-dazed smile.

Now comes the hard part.

Hickerson has to find a way to care for her premature twins even though she and her partner, Dwight Ward, have no home, no money, no jobs. They’re now living in a special shelter for newborns at St. Patrick Catholic Church, trying to figure out where to go next.