Family’s flight by limo only begins their story

By Susan Berger
Special to the Tribune
Published August 30, 2005, 4:43 PM CDT

Even before a North Shore family's escape by limousine from Hurricane Katrina was over, they had become the media "get" of the day.

Kyle Kogan, 18, a New Trier High School graduate who would have started his first year at Tulane University, was still in the limo on its long drive from New Orleans to Chicago when he told his mother, Carin, to turn off her cell phone.

"Kyle had a terrible headache from the phone constantly ringing," she said.

After the Tribune reported Carin and Marty Kogan, Kyle's parents, paid $3,700 to a New Orleans limousine driver Sunday to ferry them and a South Dakota couple to safety, other newspapers as well as radio and TV stations were in hot pursuit.

The South Dakota couple left the Kogans in Chicago and caught a flight home from O'Hare International Airport.

Carin Kogan said when she arrived home in Glencoe about 2:30 p.m. Monday, the phones were ringing there, too.

The homecoming was among the lead stories of NBC-5's 6 p.m. Monday newscast.

Resting in her bed with her dog Jack at her side, Carin Kogan also did a radio interview Monday with Roe Conn of WLS-AM.

The family received more than 80 requests for interviews, including requests from Larry King, "The Today Show," CBS "The Early Show" and from radio stations as far as Canada.

MSNBC's Tucker Carlson landed a live interview by satellite from the Kogans' living room for his Monday night show, "The Situation."

Carlson asked Kyle Kogan if he considered being bused to a shelter in Mississippi. The would-be freshman son said, "I met a lot of people, especially girls, who said they were going (to the shelter), and I said I want to go."

But Kyle's mother nixed that idea. There was no way, she said, she would leave her son to Katrina. "I had no idea there would be so much interest in our story," Carin Kogan said. "We were just trying not to die in a hurricane. It was really scary and even more so hearing the news today. I'm so grateful and feel so bad for those who didn't make it out."