Under Surge, Under Siege

Bay St. Louis, MS is a small arts colony located on the Gulf Coast. These journal entries and essays examine the town’s astonishing community spirit, which flourishes despite the horrific disaster and an arduous, on-going aftermath. To enlarge images, double-click on them.

I'm pleased to announce that the manuscript for this book has been completed and will be published in the summer of 2010 by the University Press of Mississippi under the title "Under Surge, Under Siege, the Odyssey of Bay St. Louis and Katrina." Check back often for more information!

This project was also awarded a Fellowship for Literary Excellence by the Mississippi Arts Commission (July 2007). Two complete chapters (The Story of the Bay Town Inn and Room Number Five) were published in the Summer 2008 edition of Southern Cultures - the literary journal for the UNC - Chapel Hill Center for Study of the American South.

The opening chapter, "Language of Loss" was awarded First Place Runner-up in the essay division of the 2006 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. In the 2007 competition, the chapter "Five Pounds of Potatoes" was a semi-finalist in the same division.


For additional information, access my Webb School and professional sites. Thanks to all of you who have encouraged me over the past four years in this attempt to document the story of my community.


Chapter 1 - The Language of Loss
______________________

There's a man living in my driveway now and I don’t find that at all unusual. He makes his bed in the back of his small SUV and sleeps there with his little dog. Many afternoons he can be found sitting behind the wheel, reading the paper, his Shitz Su nestled on his lap. He calls his car “home.” It’s part of the new vocabulary that’s emerging on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

The man is the grandfather of Anna, who’s nine years old and one of my new residents. She and her parents stay at my house for now because the storm took their own. Anna tells me that the Shitz Su is fussy and will pick fights with my dogs, so her grandfather would rather stay in his car than intrude. I’ve tried to insist that he come inside – we’d find him a bed to sleep in - but I think that now he’d rather be in the one place he can call his own.

He’s not the only one. I have other friends living in tents in their driveways or in cramped travel-trailers rather than taking refuge with family in other towns. They want to stay connected with the place that has been their home, even if the structure is no longer standing. It may not seem very practical, but practicality flew out of the window along with everything else when Katrina tore through Mississippi two months ago.

"Katrina Patina"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

The community that remains behind on the coast has evolved into a new animal – some fantastic creature I’ve never seen before. It’s fiercely loyal, incredibly hardy and deeply determined. It’s developed a wicked sense of humor and doesn’t whine very often. No matter your loss, too many others have lost more. It’s bad form to complain.

And this new community is developing its own language, with an extensive and colorful vocabulary. There’s “mucking out.” That used to mean cleaning out a horse’s stall. Now it’s something you do to the inside of your house. “Gone-Pecan” is used frequently – it’s a designation for anything that got taken out by the storm – houses, businesses, cars, family photos. It’s interchangeable with “Got-Gone.”

Friends meeting in the meal tents or the FEMA lines will ask each other, “How’d you make out?” Too many times the answer is “I got slabbed,” meaning nothing of the house remains except the concrete foundation. If one of them still has walls standing, the answer will be along these lines: “I came out pretty well – I only got six feet of water.” The homeless friend will offer congratulations. This is the only place in America where having six feet of mud and water violently invade your house is considered lucky.

When we leave the region and go someplace that wasn’t affected by the storm, we call it “the outside world.” The outside world has cable TV and working phones. You can walk out your door and look at a neighborhood instead of rubble. You can drive to any number of gas stations or stores and they’re actually open. You don’t have to stand in line four hours to buy a washing machine or talk to a FEMA agent. A chainsaw isn’t a necessary household item. You can call an insurance agent and actually talk to someone. There isn’t a 10 o’clock curfew. And in the outside world, the word “Katrina” is just a name instead of an adjective.

Here, we have “Katrina-mind.” That refers to blanking out, forgetting something absurdly simple, like your own phone number or the name of your best friend. We say “Katrina-ware.” That’s the paper and plastic we mostly eat from now. There’s the “Katrina Cough,” a persistent hacking from breathing all the silt brought in by the storm. This dust hangs in the air and coats everything with a fine, malevolent grit.

A portable toilet has become a “Katrina Latrina.” Fetid water that has hidden in corners and plastic boxes, a dark brew of multi-colored molds that emits an unmistakable stench, is “Katrina Juice”. And my favorite new phrase is “Katrina Patina.”

Anything that survived the storm is coated with sludge, discolored, mangled at least to some degree. It’s got that “Katrina Patina.” Jewelry, artwork, tools, photographs, furniture, clothes – all have been transformed by the storm into something vaguely recognizable, yet inalterably changed. Friends, at the end of a long day of mucking, covered with grime and sweat and a substance resembling black algae, will refuse an embrace. “Stay back,” they’ll warn. “I’ve got the Katrina Patina.”

Even after a scalding shower, scrubbing with soap and disinfectant, the Katrina Patina remains, marking every one of us. It doesn’t wash off. We, as well as our belongings, are vaguely recognizable, inalterably changed. We can only hope some of it wears away as the years pass.

Yet beneath that patina - under the sludge and the mud, the loss and the mourning - a bright determination flourishes. Our spirit as a community is evolving as surely as our vocabulary. We’re fluent in the language of loss now, but we’re also learning more about the language of love.

"Sunset Mural"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

This beachfront mural in Bay St. Louis by artist Chris Hill survived the storm, but now has the "Katrina Patina"

(text and photos copyright 2005 by Ellis Anderson and Joe Tomasovsky)

The Ties That Bind

from my storm journal - 1/03/06
_____________________



We’re already forgetting our town.

A few days ago, I found a photo of Bay St. Louis before the storm. It's a digital shot I'd taken last winter, during one of my sunset walks on the beach. I enlarged it on my computer screen and sat before it, staring.

"Bay St. Louis before the Storm"

photo by Ellis Anderson

Anna, who’s just turned ten, walked into the room with her mother, Kim. They’ve been living with me in the four months since Katrina destroyed their home. They were surprised to find me crying and checked out the photo causing my grief. Kim understood immediately. Their home had stood a block from where I’d taken the picture. Now their house was gone. All the houses in the photo were gone. The image of our old, familiar town had already faded and we were both stricken by a renewed sense of loss. But Anna didn’t get it. She peered more closely at the picture.

“That’s beautiful!” she said. “Where is it?”

Her mother started crying too.

________________________

Katrina robbed us of our town. If you’re not from here, you can’t conceive of the damage. You may have seen pictures, but photos represent only a tiny window view of the disaster. A single image can't begin to convey the scale of the obliteration. Most of you have probably witnessed the aftermath of a tornado. Now, in your mind's eye, try to picture miles and miles of that same sort of splintered devastation. One can drive the coast for hours and find nothing that escaped harm.

"Beach Neighborhood"

photo by Joe Tomasovsky

The damage is unprecedented in three hundred years of recorded history. Katrina drove a 35 foot wall of black water that barreled in from the Gulf like a gigantic bulldozer. Structures that had seen dozens of severe storms - including Hurricane Camille - buildings that had been standing solidly for over a century, are simply gone. The old Spanish Customs House in the Bay, built on high ground in 1789, is scattered over a four block area. Only the brick floor remains.

"Jourdan Rver Estates"

photo by Ellis Anderson

Mountains of debris will take years to completely clear. Most of my friends and neighbors lost everything they owned, many without flood insurance because we lived in a "no flood" zone. Some of my friends are living in tents or trailers. Some have temporarily evacuated, some have left for good. The ones that return sift through the remains of their lives and come back at the end of the day covered with mud, holding a small bag of odd items they've salvaged. They’re happy if they found something like their mother's tea-cup.

The storm stole more from us than homes or personal possessions - it took a way of life. I don’t want Anna to forget that life. I don’t want any of us who lived here to forget. And I want people who never knew this place to understand exactly what we lost. So let me tell you about Bay St. Louis before the storm. I’ll try to paint the landscape that I loved so well, create a picture of this village by a sleepy sea.

Ancient oaks lined the coast, framing large and elegant houses - many of them built in the 1800’s. Behind this dignified vanguard, cottages clustered along narrow, shaded lanes. These neighborhoods were mixed in more ways than one. Professors lived next door to plumbers, young families next to retirees, black next to white, rich next to poor. I loved that – it flew directly in the distorted face most outsiders have pasted on the state of Mississippi.

The architectural styles of the homes varied as much as the people who lived in them. Cheek to cheek, the Creole cottage danced with the Victorian, the Greek Revival with the bungalow. In those lush yards, you could imagine the lingering ghosts from an era of ease. They didn’t want to leave. Nobody who came here wanted to leave. This place pulled at the hearts of any who have them. It promised peace and made good on its word.

"The Brignac Grounds"

photo by Ellis Anderson

We were safe here. The simmering city anger that threatens harm was far away. Many of us casually left car keys in the ignition or forgot to lock our doors. That feeling of security was rooted in our sense of community. If you’d lived here, you wouldn’t have known everyone in town, but sometimes it would have seemed like it. A trip to the grocery store or post office was a social outing. Checkout lines were always alive with chatter about kids and family. You would have heard the question, “How’s your mama?” several times a day.

Children of the Bay didn’t realize it, but they lived in a Norman Rockwell portrait of a kinder time. Parents could take toddlers to the beach and relax their guard. They didn’t have to worry about treacherous undertows and surf, because the shallow water lapped at the shore as if it were a placid lake. Older kids would walk down to the beach in groups or bike together down sparsely trafficked streets. If they recognized you, they’d wave and try to ride faster. They didn’t want you to stop them and ask how their mama was doing. They were on a mission: To have fun and be free.

I’d feel like a kid myself when I’d go out for my daily bike ride. The free-wheeling feeling of childhood, buoyant like a helium balloon, swelled in my chest when I’d pedal through the streets. I knew I must have looked strange – a middle-aged woman, sun-hat shading my face, one dog riding in my basket, another trotting alongside - but it didn’t matter here. A little eccentricity was welcome in the Bay.

Biking at night was even better. I could imagine that I was living in the 1930’s as I silently glided past shuttered shops and cottages lit by antique lamps. The magic was palpable on soft, humid summer evenings. It was as if some alchemist had distilled the essence of a small southern town and poured it over the ground of Bay St. Louis. Our town motto is “A Place Apart,” and it was.

Three mornings before the storm, I rode my bike to the beach for the last time. No premonition of doom followed me. The dawn was breaking and a diffused pink light tinted the town. It seemed like I moved through a fairy tale, one with a happily-ever-after ending. Would I have appreciated it more if I’d known it was my last time? I don’t think so. I knew how lucky I was.

"The Bike"

photo by Ellis Anderson

*************

Despite Katrina, I still feel lucky. I’m learning new lessons every day. And of all the lessons I’ve learned since the storm upturned this idyllic coast, this seems the most important: A sense of community is the most undervalued asset in this country today.

In those first black days after the storm, we were cut off from the outside world, isolated and alone. Yet, I watched a couple who had lost all they owned driving over from Pensacola repeatedly. They brought truckloads of needed supplies and distributed them around town. I saw the two elderly brothers on my block, the only ones in the area who had a generator, welcoming strangers in to charge cell phones and drills.

I witnessed the Miracle of the Shrines - neighbors would pick through the rubble from houses of friends and salvage the few personal belongings they could find. They would set these items up at the edge of the property. One could drive down the street and pass Irish crystal vases, family portraits, pottery or silver candlesticks, neatly arranged at the curb, awaiting the owners who had evacuated.

"Seaside Shrine"

photo by Ellis Anderson

People are still stressed beyond comprehension, yet they continue to give. I’ve witnessed so many acts of kindness that my faith in the goodness of most humans has been restored. Yes, theft occurs, cross words are exchanged, hoarding happens. But overall, because we feel bound to each other, we’ve taken care of our neighbors.

No wonder so many of us want to stay and rebuild. Each day, we exist surrounded by destruction and it's a hard, hard burden to bear. But this community possesses a spirit that the winds and the surge of Katrina weren’t able to steal. The storm only strengthened those qualities that connect us.

I used to sing a hymn in church when I was a kid - "Blessed be the Ties That Bind." Now I understand that those ties can go beyond family, beyond religious affiliation, beyond political leanings or race or economic status. They're ties of the heart and can still be found in the remains of a little town called Bay St. Louis.

"Citizen Street, January 2006"
photo by Ellis Anderson

(text and photos copyright 2005 by Ellis Anderson and Joe Tomasovsky)

The Dethroning of Camille

from my storm journal - 12/04/05
___________________________


My insurance adjuster’s eyes bug out. “You stayed for the storm?” he says. “I ought to get back in my car and go right now.” He doesn’t actually call me nuts, but his tone of voice says it for him.

After waiting two months to see a representative from my insurance company, I would lay down in front of a train to prevent his departure. “It’s a Camille thing,” I stammer. Even as I say it, I realize it won’t make sense to someone from Ohio.

I am right. This answer does nothing to convince him of my sanity. He narrows his eyes and asks another question and for this one, I can find no words. “What was it like?” he says.

For months, I’ve wanted to write about my storm experience, but procrastinate with persistence. I circle that mental minefield with suspicion and tread in tentatively, knowing one misstep will blow my carefully constructed composure to smithereens. So I’ll sidle in the back way by starting with the history of Hurricane Camille. After all, she’s the reason I and hundreds of my neighbors chose to stay.

One of the best quotes I’ve heard since the storm is that Camille killed more people in 2005 than she did in 1969. If your house survived that storm, it could handle the worst nature could throw at you. After all, Queen Camille broke every record in the book.

Here’s a few statistics: Camille was the most intense storm to hit the mainland U.S. in modern history. Sustained winds were 190 mph, gusts to 220. The lowest storm pressure ever recorded on the mainland (909 mbs) was measured in Bay St. Louis. The tidal surge was estimated at 22-27 feet, an all-time record for our country.


Camille was our town’s yardstick for catastrophe. Before Katrina, when guests asked me how I felt about living in a hurricane prone area, I had blithe and confident answers. “Bay St. Louis is on a high ridge of land,” I’d explain smugly. “This neighborhood didn’t even flood in Camille.” If I was shopping for real estate, the first question I’d ask is, “Did it flood in Camille?” If the answer was no, I rested easy, knowing that it would be eternally high and dry.

Insurance agents were equally as confident. They’d tell you, “If your property didn’t see water in Camille, don’t waste your money on flood insurance.” Lots of my friends heard the same line, but no one really blames the agents. We were all insurance poor, paying vast amounts just for the windstorm policies. Why not save the money if you were located on some of the highest ground on the Gulf?

The numerous historic houses on the coast bolstered our community confidence even higher. Homes that were 100-150 years old lined the shore. The sturdy Spanish Customs house, right up the street from me, had stood overlooking the beach since 1789 and faced off countless storms, including Camille. These buildings were monuments to indestructibility, daily reminders to keep the faith.

Camille was called a “hundred year storm.” What were the chances of another Camille striking in our lifetime? And if another monster storm were to occur in that hundred years, could lightning possibly strike twice in the same place? Throw in the astronomical probability of a storm worse than Camille making landfall in the same area within thirty years and you have odds that would be the dream of any bookie. It’s a bet the most timid gambler would have taken in a heartbeat. I certainly did.

In the days before Katrina hit, the name Camille became a mantra while the community prepared for a “bad one.” Everyone on the Gulf Coast takes hurricanes seriously, but many of my neighbors were Camille veterans. While we were boarding up, filling our bathtubs, checking our batteries, I heard over and over, “The weather people are alarmists. They’re predicting a 20 foot surge, so maybe it’ll get to 15. And even if it’s 20 feet, Camille was way worse. We didn’t take water in ‘69. We’ll be fine.”

Outsiders may not understand this reasoning. Before any storm, the weather stations and public authorities screech in strident tones, “Evacuate now!” But while Coast residents pay attention to the wind speed of storms, we know from generations of experience that tidal surge will present the most danger. If your roof blows off (and it’s happened to me in the past), it’s dramatic, but not usually life-threatening.

If you have sturdy shelter on high ground, you have two choices when a storm approaches: You can fight bumper to bumper traffic which crawls along – and it can take 6 hours to move 50 miles - hoping to find a motel room two states away. Or you can trust the surge predictions, batten down the hatches and stay put.

As Katrina moved into the Gulf, family and friends around the country pled with me to evacuate. I invoked the name of Camille, holding it up like a banner, a bright talisman to ward off my fears. I was too exhausted to attempt a long drive and resisted last minute pressure to retreat to Diamondhead - a community five miles north. I trusted my own stout historic house more than any new and untested structure. “The only thing I’m really worried about is the water and this property didn’t even flood in Camille. They’re predicting a much lower surge for this storm,” I declared again and again.

Now, when people asked me why I stayed, my standard line is, “If I’d known we were going to be hit by a 35 foot tsunami, I would have been in Nebraska.” Despite the advances in science, weather forecasts are not infallible. My neighbors and I had trusted that a 20 foot surge would be the worst-case scenario. I should have remembered that my thesaurus lists an interesting synonym for “prediction.” That word is “guess.”

The afternoon of the storm, when the waters had receded from the coast and the winds had relented somewhat, I picked my way through the rubble and gazed in shock at the splintered, unrecognizable remains of my historic neighborhood. In a single morning, hundreds of years of heritage had been erased. Elegant houses and quaint cottages were crushed or left twisted in the middle of streets. Even the Spanish Customs House had vanished completely, the lot filled with tangled heaps of debris. Worse yet, we knew without doubt that beneath the mountains of timbers and trees, lay bodies of our neighbors and friends.

Queen Camille has been dethroned. It turned out she was just the dress rehearsal for loss, a dry run for true disaster. Katrina took our homes, our livelihoods, members of our community - but my friend Kat pegged one of the most important things: The storm stripped us of our illusion of security.

So when my insurance adjuster asks his final question, I have a final answer. “Would you stay again?” he asks.

“No,” is my very short reply.

"All that remains of the Waveland City Hall"
photo by Ellis Anderson

(text and photos copyright 2005 by Ellis Anderson and Joe Tomasovsky)

The Dominos of Denial

from my storm journal - 12/14/05
__________________________


At first, I thought the street was flooding from the hours-long downpour of rain, but the thin film of water covering the road quickly became a stream. An orange cat bounded pell-mell across the yard, headed to higher ground. A cooler sailed by at a fast clip, followed by a sheet of tin from someone’s roof. When the trunk of a large tree careened past - looking like a kayak caught in rapids - adrenaline began to roar through my veins. The roots of my hair rose up in a futile effort to desert the rest of my body. Denial wasn’t possible any more. I was watching a storm surge charging in from the Gulf of Mexico.

I’d always prided myself on being cool in a crisis, yet now, only one thought ran through my head, repeating like a record on an unbalanced jukebox: “You idiot. You should have gone to Diamondhead.”

Diamondhead is a community five miles north of Bay St. Louis. Friends who had evacuated to ride out the storm there had begged me to join them. I had resisted. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “No surge will make it back to my house, I’m a quarter mile from the beach,” I assured them. “It can’t be worse than Camille.”

But now, Katrina had me feeling like I was trapped in the Alamo, surrounded by an enemy whose strength had been vastly underestimated. No reinforcements would arrive, no escape was possible. If the walls were breached, my survival would be in doubt. How did I find myself in that precarious position? The decisions had fallen into place like dominos of denial, ending with my resolution to ride out the storm.

"Surge Rising on Citizen Street"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

Three days before I’d been packing for a trip to North Carolina for my dad’s 84th birthday celebration. Katrina was already in the Gulf, but our town was well outside the cone of the predicted path. How could the storm alter course enough to affect my plans? After fretting through the morning, I packed my car and hit the road that Friday afternoon. I was on the far side of Montgomery when my cell phone rang.

“The storm’s changed course and it’s headed straight here,” said my friend Lori. “You’ve got to come back.” To someone in another part of the world that might sound like advice from a madwoman, but it made perfect sense to me. I had to prepare my house. I pulled off the interstate, sat in the parking lot of a fast food joint and made calls to several other friends. After an hour of listening to conflicting reports, I regretfully turned the car south and headed home, just to be on the safe side.

Late that night, I stopped in a motel and slept for a few hours, continuing the drive at dawn on Saturday. When I neared Mobile, I was struck by a sudden resentment that my vacation had been cut short. I veered off the interstate and headed down to Dauphin Island, slightly to the south and west of Mobile. I’d always loved the place and wanted to play tourist for a few hours.

Once I crossed the causeway onto the island, the atmosphere changed. An eerie sense of doom hung in the air like a thick fog. I drove to the west end of the island and saw that it was already underwater, although the storm was still two days from landfall. Waves had engulfed the pilings of several raised houses, giving them the appearance of abandoned oil-rigs. A few crews were out boarding up windows, but for the most part, it looked as if residents had given up any attempts at protection.

I stopped for breakfast in the only open café. There were few diners and while I ate, I listened to the local waitresses terrorize the tourists with stories of past storms. It was amusing, but the sense of crisis was contagious. I didn’t linger for more coffee. Knowing the stores at home would be mobbed, I shopped at an Alabama grocery store, stocking up with gallons of water, some canned goods and a large bag of dog food. I also filled the tank of my car with gas, blissfully unaware that it would be for the last time. On the road back to the Bay, an escalating urgency made me ignore the speed limits.

My home in Bay St. Louis is a renovated schoolhouse - The Webb School - built in 1913. My contractor friends assure me that it’s as strong as a fortress. It’s a raised building, set on solid concrete pilings, ten feet tall. I’d already had the largest of the many windows boarded over, but there was still a lot of work to be done. The next twenty-four hours were a blur as I put my hurricane preparation system into effect.

The list is long: Take down every piece of art and store it in the most protected closets (a strong storm can vibrate the walls so much, they crash to the floor). Move all the potted plants and outdoor furniture to safety beneath the house. Ditto the car. Cover the important furniture with tarps in case the roof blows off. Pack up all the pottery and sacred books in plastic crates. Fill up the bathtub. Check the battery supply and make sure all the flashlights were working. Make backup discs for the computer.

"The Webb School - Ellis's House before Katrina"
photo by Ellis Anderson

By Sunday afternoon, I was exhausted. The squalls were beginning to roll in, with thin bands of clouds hurling through a sky tinged with a freakish yellowish cast. As I worked, images from the Wizard of Oz kept flashing in my head. I saw myself as Dorothy, racing for the root cellar while a relentless tornado bore down on her. The wicked witch cackled in the background.

I checked the internet for the latest information on the storm. It looked bad, but not as bad as Camille. My house hadn’t taken any damage with Camille. My property hadn’t flooded in Camille. Camille, Camille, Camille - the very worst that could happen. Another domino fell and I made the decision to stay. After all, in thirty years of living on the Gulf Coast, I’d ridden out numerous tropical storms or hurricanes. What could be different this time?

My 92-year-old friend Mimi agreed. She’d recently been confined to a nursing home in the Bay and they’d decided to bus all the patients to Jackson to sleep on a gym floor. She felt like the journey would kill her and instead of evacuating, commanded her son Jimmie bring her to my house. Mimi and I had spent a total of four storms together through the years. A Camille veteran, she was not afraid of this one.

As Jimmie and I helped her up the steps into my house, I jokingly asked her, “Where’s the family silver?” Usually, when she’d evacuate her low-lying house, she’d bring a little carpet-bag crammed with sterling heirlooms. I’d always thought it was the epitome of Southern charm. This time, it’d been forgotten in the rush and there was no going back. We both made light of the oversight, assuming it’d be safe. But Mimi had seen her home and her silver for the last time.

When Jimmie and his mother were comfortably settled in, I walked next door to ride out the storm with Joe Tomasovsky. He’d moved in as my neighbor just three months before, after retiring from a long career as a photography teacher in Florida. We’d been friends for years and had only started “seeing” each other that spring.

Joe had lived most of his life on the Gulf Coast where hurricanes were part of the package. After considering the weather reports, he’d decided to stay in his house. It wasn’t as high off the ground as my own, but it’d weathered many storms in the past century - the previous owner had told Joe she’d only sustained $30 worth of damage in Camille. Joe made a last ditch attempt to send me packing to Diamondhead, but my mind was made up. I was convinced surge wasn’t an issue and felt safe in his time-tested house. I decided to stay with Joe. Besides, it might even be a “bonding experience.”

Map of Ellis and Joe's neighborhood in Bay St. Louis

In Joe’s living room, Cleo the squirrel, leapt around in a large cage. Joe rehabs baby squirrels, and Cleo had been his latest orphan. He’d released her as a mischievous adult into his yard shortly after he’d moved from Florida, but she still showed up from time to time, performing antics and begging for nuts. That afternoon, she’d appeared on his porch after a long absence. She was completely wet, leading Joe to believe she’d returned from afar to take refuge. He’d interrupted his work to assemble a cage and brought her inside. Cleo didn’t seem to resent her lapse into captivity. She darted around the inside of the cage with a manic energy, pausing only to accept a peanut from my hand.

"Joe and Cleo"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

All preparations complete, we tried to make phone calls, but the lines were overloaded. We couldn’t get through to Joe’s daughter who lived in New Orleans. We only hoped that Robyn had evacuated to Baton Rouge as planned. When I finally connected with my parents in North Carolina, I urged them not to listen to the news. “They always make a catastrophe out of any storm,” I said. “You may not hear from me for a few days because the lines will be down, but don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

We spent the rest of the evening on the computer, pulling up every weather site we could find. They were all still predicting a local surge of 20-22 feet, although one or two doomsday sites warned it could be as high as 25. A friend called from Florida and reported the news that buoys in the gulf were registering waves 55 feet high, giving me my first real burst of alarm. But waves aren’t the same as surge, I told myself. I wasn’t going to allow alarmists to cause me extra anxiety. Fatigue finally overcame foreboding and we fell asleep to the sound of fitful winds slamming through the trees.

We woke about two in the morning with gusts hitting the house like fists. Rain lashed at the windows. The light in the kitchen went out and we knew we’d seen the last of electricity for what we naively imagined would be a few days. The rest of the night was punctuated by sharp cracks as trees fell and heavy oak limbs snapped. When something hit the house, one of us would leap from bed to make sure the roof hadn’t been compromised, then we’d drift back into an uneasy sleep.

The morning brought dim light, but no let-up in the winds. My cell phone rang about 8 o’clock. Lori, hunkered down with friends in Diamondhead, had managed to get through. “Heads up,” she said. “We just heard on the weather radio that the storm surge is supposed to be worst in Waveland and Bay St. Louis. It’s going to hit between 8:30 and 9. They’re saying it could be 20-22 feet.” Her voice sounded calm. She didn’t tell me that she’d dreamed both Joe and I had perished in the storm and thought it was a premonition.

Joe and I patrolled the house aimlessly, looking for leaks, trying to keep busy. The walls were shaking from the force of the storm. Curtains billowed into the rooms, so I kept checking the windows to make sure they were closed. I found none open. Despite the extra protection of storm windows, the thundering winds still penetrated the house. Cleo hid in her nesting box, only the tip of her tail visible. It looked like an enviable place to be.

At nine o’clock, I began to feel more at ease. According to Lori’s report, the surge should have already hit and was probably receding. That would mean we were halfway through the storm with no major mishaps. I could see many sheets of tin had blown off the back of my own roof, but wasn’t terribly concerned. It’d be a little wet inside. Mimi and Jimmie would be fine. This was going to be just another bad storm. We’d probably forget its name in a few years.

Then around quarter past nine, Joe called me into the front room where he’d managed to force open the door. Erratic gusts slammed against him and he gripped the doorframe to remain upright. He was looking up the street towards the beach. I fought to join him as sharp blasts of air ripped through the house like psychotic poltergeists on a rampage.

“The street’s flooding,” he shouted to be heard over the wind. “Has it done that before?” I shrugged. “No, but we must have had 7 or 8 inches of rain in the past few hours.” Joe pointed out that the grass in his yard was beginning to be covered by water too. “My yard floods sometimes too,” I said, a little more doubtfully. But ten minutes later, when the water had already reached a foot and was rising steadily, the awful reality of the situation was clear. The last domino had fallen. I was about to spend the longest two hours of my life.

"Surge Rising in Joe's Backyard"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

(text and photos copyright 2005 by Ellis Anderson and Joe Tomasovsky)

The Fourth Step

from my storm journal - 1/07/06

_____________________


The First Step

My cell phone became a high-tech rosary. My fingers fumbled as I punched number after number into the keyboard. Even when I managed to enter a correct number, I’d only hear a busy signal. Lines were either down or overwhelmed. I rehearsed the one question I’d ask if I was lucky enough to make outside contact: Where is the eye of the storm? If it was passing, the surge was peaking. If the hurricane was still at sea, we were experiencing just the beginning of a tsunami.

Phone in hand, I paced from room to room, unconsciously looking for a way to escape. In Joe’s office, I eyed the attic pull-down, remembering the old New Orleans adage about keeping an axe in the attic. Yesterday, I’d joked about the tradition. Joe had never heard of it, so I had to explain that people who retreated to an attic because of rising waters could be trapped there and drowned. If an axe were in the attic, they could at least hack a hole in the roof. It had seemed funny the night before - now I wondered if I’d be climbing up there soon.

My pacing took me to the kitchen door and I peered out into the storm. The Gulf of Mexico covered the patio and yard, but it looked more like the Amazon river. Sinister dark eddies swirled against the stairs to the house. Five steps rose from the ground level to the porch landing. The first was already submerged, the second was under attack.


Mesmerized by the sight, I almost dropped the phone in surprise when I heard a voice. I’d somehow gotten through to my friends Regan and Mark, weathering the storm at their house several miles inland. Regan had no new reports. Their radio had gone out and the last they’d heard was that the eye should have passed at nine.

Regan suggested that we try to make it back to my house. I moved to another window and looked longingly towards the massive white building. Through the sheets of rain, it beckoned like a lighthouse. But the short path between Joe’s house and mine had disappeared beneath muddy rapids, seething with debris. The current ran against us.

“Ahh, honey,” Regan said, her tone heavy with pity. She put Mark on the line, but our call was cut short. Their roof was blowing off. It was the last phone conversation I’d have for three days.

“Joe’s Yard Before the Storm”
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

“Joe’s Yard During the Storm”
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

The Second Step

Still working the phone, I joined Joe on the back porch. He seemed unperturbed by the gusts of wind pummeling him and held his camera to his eye as he framed shots of his yard. The raging river was rising – the second step had been overtaken and water lapped hungrily at the third.

A flying sheet of tin sent us scurrying for cover and once inside, I put my hand on his arm. In a shaky attempt at humor, I asked Joe if he’d put the axe in the attic. “Ellis,” he said, a hint of irritation in his voice, “You’ve already asked me that three times. No. The axe is in the garage.”

I realized then how addled I was. I had no recollection of asking before. We gazed at the garage, only twenty feet away, separated now from the house by a rushing torrent.

Joe explained that if the water rose much higher, the house could float off the pilings. “When the water comes into the house,” he said, “we have to get out.”

Some details stick in my memory like glints of glitter. He used the word “when” instead of “if.” Another wash of raw terror slid through my body. I looked out into the raging winds and across the expanse of black, pitiless water. An incredulous voice in my head protested: Are you crazy? Just shoot me in the head right now and get it over with!

I hadn’t spoken aloud, but my face must have registered horror. Joe’s teacher persona took control. Suddenly, he was directing students during a bomb threat or fire drill. “We need to look for floatation devices,” he said. “See what you can find.”

I salvaged the remains of my composure and began roaming the rooms on the bizarre hunt. It’s amazing how few things in most houses will double as life preservers. Furniture, books, beds, toilet seats, computers - nothing offered any buoyancy. The voice in my head shouted as I searched: There are no frigging floatation devices in this house! Then, I remembered the Tupperware stash in the kitchen cabinets. I actually laughed aloud at the image of Joe and I swimming for our lives clutching plastic leftover containers.

The Third Step

I returned to the kitchen to make my report and noticed the water had overtaken the third step. Joe had continued shooting while I’d searched and didn’t seem surprised at my failure. I understood then that he’d given me the job to focus my attention and disperse my panic.

He decided that I was calm enough for swimming lessons. Joe is an avid kayaker and knows the ways of wild water. His measured voice commanded my attention - he might have been in a high school classroom lecturing students on darkroom technique. He began with a reminder about the futility of fighting currents. I already knew this from experience, but his next piece of information surprised me.

“Don’t try to reach out and grab something in front of you. The water can push you into it and hurt you – you could go under. Turn around in the water and try to catch something that’s going by or already passed.” He noticed my skepticism. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s really important you remember that.”

My inner movie theatre began projecting a surrealistic film. An Ester Williams version of myself backstroked across Joe’s lawn. I avoided the pecan tree in front of me. Instead, I gracefully wrapped my arms around the palm to the side, embracing it like a lover. I wore a bathing cap, accented with a spray of hibiscus flowers. Joe must have wondered why I smiled. I assured him I wouldn't forget his advice.

“Coming up the Steps”
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

The Fourth Step

I looked at the battery clock on the kitchen wall. It read 10:15. The hands had not moved in hours. I decided it was broken, but a glance out the door proved that time had passed. The water had marched past the fourth step and was relentlessly working up towards the landing. A few more inches and it would begin to invade the house.

The water surrounding the house reminded me of the Mississippi river during spring flooding. When I lived in New Orleans, I used to walk my dogs on the riverfront and watch the malicious, writhing currents hurl freighters around the bends as if they were paper boats in a whirlpool. I’d be in that water soon, with 150 mile an hour winds screeching overhead.

I decided to take a break and collect myself before entering the maelstrom. The safest place in the house seemed to be Joe’s office. He’d screwed plywood over the storm windows that in turn, protected the inner windows. Three degrees of separation made the room feel very secure. I collapsed on the sofa and tried to meditate.

The rational, zen part of myself began a deep breathing routine. The hysterical, screaming part repeated the warning from the night before – fifty-five foot waves in the Gulf! My breathing got even deeper when my head did the math: We were at 25 feet of elevation. The remaining thirty feet would more than cover the roof. Suddenly, I wanted to vomit.

I struggled to get a grip. A phrase from the sci-fi novel “Dune” popped into my head. “Fear is the mind-killer.” Whatever was to come in the next few hours, I knew that panic would paralyze me. I’d need every iota of self-possession if I wanted to survive. My eyes closed and I called serenity to me, repeating a phrase from my old-hippie lexicon: Be Here Now.

My pulse slowed, the adrenaline abated. Feeling at peace with the universe, I opened my eyes. In front of me, the bank of boarded windows afforded a sense of security. Then a blast of wind hit the side of the house so hard, the entire wall of glass actually bulged into the room, undulating like a sail of a boat. I leapt up and fled into the kitchen. Apparently, there was a hurricane version of the secret to inner peace - Be Somewhere Else Now.

Joe was checking on Cleo in the living room. I wondered how she would fare if we had to release her into the storm. How could either animals or humans survive that fury without shelter? Many of my neighbors had stayed in their homes and those houses closer to the beach would be underwater by now. All over town, families would be struggling for their lives.

Calling 911 wasn’t an option. Even if the phones had worked, no one would have answered. The people who might have helped us needed help themselves. Later, I would learn that the entire Waveland police force - 27 officers - were hanging on to a tree in their parking lot. At the Emergency Operations Center, 35 people were trapped in a dark building with water rising. They passed around a flashlight and a marker, writing their names on their arms to make body identification easier.

I checked the step gauge. The water hung at the four plus mark. The clock seemed to be working again and I watched its second-hand revolve with a speed that mimicked three-hundred year old tortoises. Five eternal minutes passed before I allowed myself to look back at the steps. A tiny twig had been stranded on the top of the fourth step by the retreating surge.

“Joe! Joe!” I shouted. “It’s going down!”

Joe joined me at the kitchen door and forced it open. He stepped out onto the landing and examined the water line. For the next ten minutes, we watched silently until the surface of the third step was revealed. Our hands slapped together in a spontaneous high-five, as I danced a jig of joy around the kitchen. The eye had passed and the tide had turned. Luck had saved us from the surge. The worst was over. But I should have remembered the lesson I’d learned in Joe’s office: Security is simply another illusion.

“The View from Joe’s Front Porch”
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

(text and photos copyright 2006 by Ellis Anderson and Joe Tomasovsky)

The Passing of the Eye

from my storm journal - 1/23/06
_____________________


The eye may have passed, pushing the surge back to the sea, but the storm was only half over. The clock read 11:30. Katrina had been raging for over six hours, with at least six more to go.

Joe and I were checking his front rooms for leaks when we heard knocking at the kitchen door. Our eyes widened in disbelief. Who would be politely visiting in the middle of a hurricane? But the rapping came again, insistent and much too rhythmic to be caused by the fitful winds that still shook the house. I hurried into the kitchen and found Jimmie and my neighbor Paul patiently waiting on the landing.

I pulled them into the house, where they shook the rain off themselves like big dogs climbing out of a pond. I had lots of questions, all fighting to be first in line. The winner was one about Mimi.

Jimmie assured us that she was fine. “The boat people are watching her,” he said. I couldn’t quite get my head around that. Boat people? James began to reel off a jumble of details, but they bounced off my exhausted brain like children on a taut trampoline:

My house had become a shelter for the neighborhood. The first arrival was Paul. Paul’s apartment across the street had lost the roof and then began to flood. He’d grabbed his kitten and waded to my house to take refuge with Mimi and Jimmie. The two men had tried to minimize the damage inside by patching broken panes of glass and putting out pots to catch the numerous leaks. In the frenzy, Jimmie had been blown from a ladder while trying to secure a transom window. He’d landed solidly on his hip, but could still manage to walk.

Then a boat had floated to my house with four people clinging to the sides. Jimmie helped the wet survivors inside and made them as comfortable as possible. The new arrivals said they were neighbors of mine from down the street, but Jimmie couldn’t remember their names. When the water had gone down, he and Paul decided to cross the yard to Joe’s house to check on us. The boat people agreed to keep an eye on the sleeping Mimi.

Jimmie said that my two dogs, Frieda and Jack, were safe and seemed to be enjoying the adventure. The night before I’d made the hard decision to leave them at my house for the storm. I was worried they’d add to Cleo’s anxiety if I’d brought them to Joe’s. Both dogs loved Jimmie - who'd sat for them many times before - so this good news relieved me of a nagging guilt.

But the house hadn’t fared as well as I’d imagined. Jimmie reported that water poured through the ceilings and cascaded down the walls. Light fixtures had filled with rain and smashed to the floor, scattering glass everywhere. Four transom windows had blown out and hurricane force winds whipped through the interior. Jimmie and I had parked our cars beneath the house for protection. Both had been submerged in the surge and were certainly totaled.

The afternoon before, I’d mentioned to Joe that I’d taken the precaution of putting my musical instruments and family photos in the trunk of my car. It was part of my hurricane routine. If the roof came off, at least my most sacred possessions would be safe. “I think you should put them upstairs,” he said. His tone of voice had a peculiar resonant quality when he spoke that single line, as if he were an oracle channeling a warning. I didn’t argue, although reason was on my side. Hedging my bet, I had moved the guitar and violin and half of the family photos upstairs. I was suddenly very grateful to Joe.

Jimmie finished his recital and then raided our Advil stash for his pain. He and Paul set out back for my house. Almost as soon as they’d left, water began invading Joe’s living room. The limbs that had hit his roof in the night had caused more damage than we’d first thought. We worked without pause for the next few hours. I handled the bucket brigade inside – mopping, emptying the many containers, catching new leaks as they sprang from the ceiling. Part of the ceiling eventually collapsed. Meanwhile, Joe sorted through his garage, which had flooded and lost the roof. He worked frantically to save the photography equipment he’d stored there, but it was mostly wasted effort.

"Joe's Living Room" (note Cleo's cage in the corner)
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

Around mid-afternoon, the gusts and rain began to slacken. I slid on my raincoat and began to fight the wind, trekking back to my own house. The well-worn path had become an obstacle course. I leapt over branches, lumber, roofing tin and railroad ties. My three huge oaks still stood, but they’d lost half their branches and were stripped of leaves. The yard was a thicket of cruelly amputated tree limbs.

Coming in through the back door, I didn’t recognize my own kitchen. A grim confetti of glass shards covered every surface. The entire ceiling dripped water, so it appeared to be raining inside. Pots and pans placed to catch the leaks had been outnumbered and sat overflowing in the shallow pool that covered the floor. I sloshed through to my living room.

Frieda was napping on a wet sofa, but Jack met me with his normal exuberant welcome, hoping it was time for a bike ride. In typical doggie fashion, he seemed unaware that anything was out of the ordinary. I found Mimi in bed, nested in the one relatively dry corner of the house. She held a radio to her ear and waved me off when I asked what she needed. Her only complaint was that “the blasted news only talks about New Orleans. There’s not one word about the Gulf Coast.” We didn’t know that this would be a permanent trend.

I forced one of the front doors open and looked over the railing. The boat below canted to one side, the bow nosed into my azaleas. A dirty cotton rope secured it to my porch railing. I checked out the rest of the neighborhood. Most of the surrounding houses still stood, though many had been shorn of their roofs. The cabinet shop across the street had been completely demolished by the winds. Looking up the block to the west, my view was obstructed by an entire house resting in the middle of the street.

I went looking for the “boat people” and found two of them in the dining room. I recognized them as my neighbors who lived on Citizen Street, about a block closer to the beach. Augusta and her daughter, Augusta-Inez, had houses next to each other. Both were soaked through and shrouded with towels. Jimmie had served them cheese and crackers on a blue glass plate. The refugee kitten played hide-and-seek with my dogs beneath their chairs.

Tired to the bone, we sat passively around the table, indifferent to the blasts of wind tearing through the broken windows and around the high-ceilings. I offered them some water and we drank from the plastic bottles, while Augusta gave me an abbreviated version of their escape.

She, her daughter and two grown sons had been floundering in the rapidly rising water in the middle of Citizen Street. They’d been on the brink of drowning, trying to make it to higher ground. A boat had floated by and they’d grabbed hold, managing to steer it to my house – the only raised building in the neighborhood. It was an astonishing tale, but I didn’t realize then that it was actually a ghost story. I wouldn’t hear the full account until more than three weeks had passed.

We were quiet for a few minutes. Finally, to make some conversation, I said, “It’s got to be over soon.” Both women nodded their heads. We didn’t understand that our ordeal was just beginning.

"Augusta and her house, after the storm"
photo by Ellis Anderson

(text and photos copyright 2006 by Ellis Anderson and Joe Tomasovsky)

Lionel's Boat

from my storm journal - 1/23/06

________________________

My house is a quarter mile from the Gulf, yet five months after Katrina, there’s still a boat beached in my front yard. It’s an ugly boat. The fiberglass is flaking and dark stains mottle the lackluster hull. It’s the sort of small power skiff that’s used to fish in bayous or in our shallow bay. There’s no motor now. The interior - where fishermen used to land their catches, swap tales and drink cold beers out of coolers - is filled with branches, leaves and mud. This boat’s been around the block a few times. Literally.

The boat didn’t arrive at my house in the normal way - on a trailer. It sailed the streets of my town, borne by the greatest storm surge in American history. Coming to rest at my porch like some battered gondola from Venice, it carried four souls to safety, four names that would have been added to the long list of Katrina’s dead. Augusta thinks it was steered by a spirit.

Though some might call it a useless eyesore, it has a new life ahead as a shrine. Augusta has given me permission to make a planter out of it. She thinks it’s a fitting end to Lionel’s boat.

"The Webb School - Ellis's House - after the storm"
photo by Ellis Anderson

I didn’t even know who Lionel was until the end of September, almost a month after the storm had passed. Volunteers from the outside had set up free food kitchens in a few locations around town and I'd go to the one closest to my house for a hot meal. I’d gotten my lunch and was looking for a seat when I ran into Augusta and Augusta-Inez. I embraced them with joy, but Augusta seemed confused at first. Her daughter had to remind her that I was “the Webb School lady.”

I could understand the confusion. Even though they’d stayed with me for three days after the storm, they’d probably never seen me with my hair combed before. Augusta’s face lit up once she made the connection. We talked about the day of the storm. I admitted how frightened I’d been.

“You know,” Augusta said. “I never was scared, that whole time. I’d prayed beforehand that the Lord would keep me from being afraid. Some people get heart attacks they get so frightened. I didn’t want that happening to me.”

She asked me what I was going to do with the boat. I explained that I wanted to make a planter out of it to commemorate the event. Although the boat seemed ruined, I was trying to track the owners down for permission. All I had to go on were the barely legible registration numbers.

“Why honey, that’s our boat,” Augusta said. This was news to me. I had thought it was a stray.

“Let me tell you,” she said. “The morning of the storm, Donald came and got me from my room. He said we got to get out now. I didn’t understand until my feet hit the floor and I was standing in water.” Donald works for the local power company. He and his brother, Steve, stayed with their mother during the storm. Donald's teenaged son and nephew were next door with Augusta-Inez.

At first, Donald thought the street flooding was from the heavy rains. He decided to move the company truck to higher ground. He began to put on his shoes, but by the time he got them tied, the water had risen over the tires. In moments, it began to seep through the floors of the house. Donald alerted Augusta and then swam across to his sister’s house to help them evacuate. There, he had to break down the front door – the six feet of water had created a vacuum. Donald and his nephew Otis made their way back to Augusta’s, fighting a heavy current and driving rain that felt like “needles in the eyes.”

Meanwhile, Steven helped Augusta down the front steps, now covered with several feet of water. “He was going real slow,” Augusta said. “Just like I was a baby. Then Otis came back with Donald. He yelled, ‘I’ll give my life for my grandma!’ He grabbed me around the waist and tucked me under his arm like I was a piece of wood. He dragged me next door to my daughter’s house so fast, I still can’t believe it. It was like he was running across the top of the water.”

Reunited for the moment on Inez’s submerged porch, the family of six decided they had to set out for higher ground. Donald told his nephew and son to go on ahead and the two boys swam towards Third Street. The four adults thrashed and struggled in the current, the water well above the heads of the two women. Then Augusta looked back towards her house.

“That boat was tied to the trailer in my yard,” she said, “but somehow it got loose and came out of the driveway. Then it made a sharp turn right towards us. It wasn’t on one side of the street or another. It came right up the middle, just as smooth as you please. We all grabbed hold tight to the sides - we couldn’t get in, the water was too deep. Then Donald turned around and saw a big wave headed our way. He was shouting, ‘Go, go, go!’”

“We made it to the school,” Augusta told me. “The boys had beat us there and were up on the porch. We got up the steps, then the door flew open and this big man said, ‘Come in! Come in!’”

Jimmie helped them into the house, while Donald stayed to tie up the boat in case the water kept rising and they’d need it again. He didn’t see his family go inside. He admitted later that he had a moment of panic when he reached the top of the stairs and they had all disappeared. The winds were so fierce, he wondered if they’d blown off the porch. Then the door opened again and Donald was pulled in to join his family.

"Augusta, Donald and Lionel's Boat"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

But there was more to the story.

Augusta continued. “That boat belonged to my son, Lionel. He used to come over from New Orleans when he was free and use it out on the Bay. He loved to fish. He’d just graduated, got his PhD in business from Vanderbilt and was headed over one weekend. That was in 1981. He was bringing his three-year-old daughter - a beautiful child. They were driving across Lake Ponchartrain when a drunk ran them off the bridge and into the water. They both drowned. That was in February, on Friday the 13th. It was 13 days before they found his body too. Thirteens all over the place.”

“I just never had the heart to get rid of that boat. It stayed in my yard for twenty-five years, never moved. Then when we were drowning in the street, water up over our heads, that boat floated right to us. Now how did that boat get untied off that trailer and come directly to us? I think my son Lionel did that.”

Goosebumps rose on my arms in salute to the story. I wiped at my eyes with a rough paper napkin. People moving around us in the food tent ignored my tears. Public weeping wasn’t unusual these days.

“So you keep that boat, honey,” Augusta said. “You go ahead and make your planter out of it. That’d be good, real good.”

"Augusta and Lionel's Boat"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

(text and photos copyright 2006 by Ellis Anderson and Joe Tomasovsky)

The Edge of the Abyss

from my storm journal - 2/7/06
_____________________________________


In Bay St. Louis, at the intersection where Hancock crosses Washington, my life changed forever. Reality shifted like a plate in the earth and I suddenly found myself teetering on the edge of a chasm. The force of the storm ripped opened that same dark abyss for everyone on the coast, so I’m not alone. But for me, it happened in a heartbeat, the moment I saw that Katrina had stolen my town.

The afternoon of the hurricane, when the winds began to die down, I still felt lucky. Everyone who’d taken refuge in my home was safe. Both Joe’s house and mine were standing, although damaged. Some of the houses around us had flooded and most had taken a beating, but the neighborhood seemed intact. A few months of clean-up and life in the Bay would return to normal. I’d forgotten that our houses were on the edge of an “island.” We’re on the fringes of the old town, built on some of the highest ground on the Gulf. Less than a block away, the elevation drops off dramatically.

Joe brought his camera and we ventured into the streets. Before we began our expedition, Joe took a photo of me in front of my house. I look at it now, hardly recognizing myself. The woman in the picture is at least 70 and has been hanging out in a wind tunnel. There’s a wry smile on my exhausted face, but there’s relief there too. I think the worst is over. I was wrong.

"After the Storm
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

We wanted to get to the front, but our routes were limited. Roads were blockaded by uprooted trees or houses that had been shoved off their foundations. Our closest option was Washington, one street back towards Old Town. As we walked the two blocks to the beach, occasional bursts of rain pelted us and leftover gusts hurtled past. The damage we saw increased with every step. The street was covered with power lines and roofing tin, lumber and mangled cars. A few of our neighbors had emerged from hiding. Every face wore the same dazed expression, as if they were waking from a long and tangled nightmare.

In the middle of the first block, a brightly painted table blocked a driveway. I paused. It was hand-crafted from a fine, light wood and in excellent condition. It looked as if it’d been placed at the curb for trash pick-up. I couldn’t understand why someone would be throwing such a nice table away. In fact, hadn’t I seen a similar table at my friend Keith’s house? But Keith lived two blocks away on Citizen, close to the beach. Suddenly, a little bomb of horror detonated in my throat.

"111 Citizen Street"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

As we approached the intersection of Hancock and Washington, we found it impossible to go further. We were just a block from the beach, but an enormous pile of rubble barricaded the road. Joe climbed onto the heap and began shooting photos, while I strained to see over the top. Finally, I summoned the courage to follow him up the mountain of debris. I clambered on to someone’s front door and gazed out at the apocalypse. The only word that came to mind was “Hiroshima.”

On the corner, I saw the home of my friends Alison and Dave. The stately historic house was oddly distorted, as if it were melting. Doors and windows had been punched out of their frames. Someone else’s roof had crashed into the porch, one corner resting in what used to be their living room. The yard was heaped head-high with entire walls and floors from other houses, large appliances and furniture, cars and riding mowers. Worse yet, theirs was the only house standing on that side of the street. On the other side, just three battered shells remained. Everything else had been crushed.

"Washington Street, Afternoon of the Storm"
(The corner of Alison and Dave's house on the right)
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

From memory, I began to count the houses that had once lined the block. I got up to sixteen before my tears began. Washington Street boasted some of the highest elevation on the Gulf of Mexico, 25 feet above sea level. If this neighborhood had been destroyed, I knew the rest of the coast didn’t have a prayer. Waveland would be gone. Pass Christian would be gone. Long Beach, Clermont Harbor, Lakeshore and Cedar Point, gone, gone, gone. I was looking at the tip of an incomprehensible iceberg. Thousands of homes had been completely obliterated. Bay St. Louis had been three hundred years in the making and had survived dozens of direct hits by storms. Katrina had annihilated most of the town in the span of a single morning.

"Waterfront Property"
the remains of beach houses in Waveland after the storm
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

I heard a voice call my name. I shakily climbed down from my perch and saw my neighbor Betsy. She stood in front of the collapsed remains of her house, yet seemed unconcerned about her own loss. She asked if I knew where our friend Phil was. I hadn’t talked to him in several days. Betsy said that he’d planned on riding out the storm in his Hancock Street house, a few doors down from hers. We looked over at the building. It had floated off the foundations. No one who stayed would have survived. Betsy had somehow commandeered some firemen who were searching the ruins for his body.

I’d seen enough. I looked around for Joe, but he’d disappeared while I was talking to Betsy. Stricken to my core, I headed for home. Although I’d walked that route hundreds of times, it had never seemed so long and lonely.

At the corner by my house, a fire truck was parked in the middle of the street. Several of my neighbors gathered around two stunned firemen. A pack of skittish dogs, loosed by the storm, circled the small crowd, hopeful of finding their owners. I heard a young fireman trying to reassure a man with a gashed lip, “This isn’t as bad as Camille,” he said with bravado. I didn’t have the heart to correct him.

Jimmie met me on the front porch. His mother was sleeping comfortably. Mimi may have been 92 and frail, but she was hardy. We discussed the gravity of the situation and decided that she needed to go to the hospital. She had a catheter and sanitation would quickly become an issue with no running water. Jimmie alerted the firemen, who’d promised they’d send someone to pick her up shortly. None of us knew that the hospital – almost two miles inland - had been destroyed as well. Three more endless days would pass before help of any kind arrived.

A woman I didn’t recognize came to the foot of my steps and asked if I had any water. The man with the gashed lip was her boyfriend and she wanted to get him cleaned up. I invited them both inside. He was an older man and climbed the steps with difficulty. Blood covered his face and the front of his shirt, but he seemed unaware. His girlfriend explained that they lived around the corner and the house had caved in around them. The man was a diabetic and had lost his insulin in the mayhem. He silently sipped the orange juice I brought him, while his girlfriend tended his wounds with bottled water and a paper towel. “Baby, baby,” she crooned as she cleaned off the crusted blood. She told me that the firemen had promised to take them to the hospital. They both thanked me as they walked back to the fire truck. I never saw them again.

The light was fading and so were the dregs of my energy. I put out flashlights, snacks and the last of the dry bedding for Augusta and her family and went over to Joe’s. He’d cooked a hot meal on his camp stove and insisted that I eat. I forced a few bites down, commanding myself not to retch. Joe had opened all the windows that weren’t boarded, allowing the remnants of the storm to air out the house. He told me to enjoy my last cool night for a long while– tomorrow we’d be sweltering, with no fans or air-conditioning to diminish the heat.

"Looking East"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

I must have slept at last, for when I woke it was as dark as the desert. At first, I didn’t remember the storm. When I did, I tried to convince myself it’d been a bad dream. The night told the truth. I heard no cars passing, no trains, no crickets or frogs or sweet-singing mockingbirds. No street or porch light cast a shadow. I stared out the window, but the blackness was unrelenting. The only thing I could see was the vision of my town in ruins. Homes and lives, hopes and dreams, an idyllic way of life - all gone with the wind. Margaret Mitchell had thought that the Yankees were the ultimate force of destruction, but she hadn’t imagined a Katrina. None of us had.

“Are you awake?” Joe whispered.

“Yes,” I answered. “I’m crying.”

"Strange Fruit"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

(text and photos copyright 2006 by Ellis Anderson and Joe Tomasovsky)

The Good Life

from my storm journal - 2/25/06
_____________________________

Before the storm hit Bay St. Louis, the first thing I’d hear in the morning was a rooster crowing. He lived a few doors down and would get started well before dawn. It could be a charming way to wake, but lots of times I’d want to strangle him. It wouldn’t have done any good. As the sky grew light, he’d be joined by a variety of wild birds. Flocks of them would gather in the trees around my house and the volume of their chattering made it hard to sleep late.

The morning after the storm, I woke with a new sort of life in a very different world. If the rooster hadn’t drowned, he was depressed. The other birds had either died or fled. The only thing I heard were the beating blades of a helicopter.

The first thought in my head was, Help is here! It’s the National Guard! Joe and I looked out the window and saw a chopper circling low, but it had no official markings. After a few minutes, we realized it was a probably a news helicopter, photographing the destruction below. Joe predicted help would be a long time coming. “They’ll be focused on New Orleans and forget about us,” he said. I didn’t believe him at the time.

Then Joe launched into what would become a morning ritual and listed the day’s priorities. As a high school teacher, he’d had a lifetime to hone his organizational skills. I accepted the direction gratefully because a dense fog had settled over my own mind. Joe didn’t sugarcoat the situation: Life as we knew it was over. If we were to survive with sanity, we’d need to take extreme measures.

The first extreme measure was to abandon our toilets. The water and sewage systems would be down for the foreseeable future. If we used the bathroom inside and flushed manually, sewage might back up into our houses. We’d need to set up a latrine and the only available place was the dark storage room beneath my house. The floor was covered with a dense, rank-smelling slime left by the surge. I shoved debris away from the door to make space for the five-gallon bucket Joe gave me. He removed a toilet seat from one of my real bathrooms and placed it over the rim of the bucket. I hung a roll of tissue from a nail on the wall. The new bathroom was ready for business.

The next point Joe tackled was the fact that our homes were some of the few standing buildings in town that hadn’t flooded inside. We’d need to house and feed people - maybe lots of them and that would take some planning. Over the next few days, we’d set up an emergency shelter. We had plenty of dry bedding and enough food and water to last several days, even with a crowd. Used sparingly, Joe guessed the propane for his camp stove would hold out for a week. He pointed out that hot meals every evening would boost morale. We’d share cooking duties.

My first priority however, was to see if anything could be salvaged from either my retail shop or jewelry studio. Joe loaned me a backpack and his bicycle – mine had both been ruined by the surge. I whistled for my dog Jack and he trotted beside the bike, eager for adventure. He was in a great mood. The stench that rose up from the mud-coated streets may have distressed me, but Jack found it invigorating.

"Jack"
photo by Ellis Anderson

It was slow going. I stopped frequently and splashed water from puddles onto the bike tires to remove mud that clung to the wheels like heavy mortar. Many times I was forced to carry the bike over and around fallen trees or sections of houses that blocked the route. The only moving vehicles I saw were the trucks of Georgia Power and an Oklahoma tree cutting company. Amazingly, their crews were already at work clearing the streets. Their chainsaws roared in the still heat of morning.

Six blocks and half an hour later, I reached "The Lumberyard." It’s a renovated arts center owned by my friends Vicki and Doug. Just three weeks before, I’d moved my office and studio into an inviting space on the ground floor. Nothing looked inviting now. The gate to the center was blocked by a massive fallen tree. I climbed over it and trudged through the thick mud, shouting for Doug. The last I’d heard, he’d planned to ride out the storm there. He didn’t respond, so I guessed he’d left for Jackson with Vicki. Later, I’d learn that he’d evacuated all right – from the frying pan into the fire.

It was obvious that a wall of water had crashed through the arts complex. It was located closer to the beach than my house, but on higher ground, so I was astonished at the damage. I peered into my studio through the plate glass windows. The room had been ransacked. My cherished tools had been churned with an evil black silt dredged from the bottom of the sea. Office equipment and files had overturned in the frenzy, while books and personal memorabilia had been hurled around the room. The shock of the sight almost brought me to my knees. Then, to ward off self-pity, I repeated a phrase that was already becoming a town mantra: No sniveling.

"Studio Meets Katrina"
photo by Ellis Anderson

I biked the two blocks to Main Street, where the debris field became too treacherous for riding. Main Street runs straight to the beach along the highest ridge of land in the Bay. On the first block from the front, I’d owned a Creole cottage built in 1850. I’d painstakingly renovated and for ten years, it had housed my gallery, studio and apartment. The older people in town called it “The Monkey House.” In the 1940’s, an eccentric woman had run a small, feisty newspaper in the front. She’d lived in the back with her large pet monkey that would periodically escape and terrorize the neighborhood children.

A month before, wanting to downsize my business, I’d sold the building. I’d signed over the deed, but not my heart. The Monkey House had never flooded in a 150-year lifespan of serious storms and together, Mimi and I had safely weathered three hurricanes there. I held my breath as I rounded the corner. When I saw that it still stood, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. It’d lost part of the roof and taken on four to five feet of water, but the sturdy cottage shone like a beacon of hope.

"The Monkey House" after the storm
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

That hope dimmed as Jack and I continued towards the front. A thick hedge of wrecked cars, beams, furniture and utility poles made it impossible to even carry the bike. I left it behind and walked forward into the nightmare. The gallery where I’d rented a retail space was toast. Much of the roof had caved in, burying my display cases and jewelry. After twenty years, I couldn’t find enough left of my business to put into a backpack. I wouldn’t be alone - most of the old downtown had been demolished.

The waterfront itself was unrecognizable. Main Street used to end at Beach Boulevard. Now, it abruptly dropped off to the Gulf below. The beach road was gone. Every structure on the beach side of the road was gone. The buildings on the near side hadn’t fared much better - the few surviving shells looked as if they’d been bombed. The entire front of one brick building had been sheared away. A fully furnished living room on the 2nd floor was exposed to the street, looking like a bizarre set for a Fellini film.

"The Living Room"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

The railroad bridge dissecting Old Town was no longer a bridge. Concrete pilings rising out of the water were all that remained, while the track itself twisted crazily into the Gulf, a roller-coaster ride gone berserk. I looked towards the four-lane Bay bridge in the distance. Only scattered supports bore witness to the fact it had even existed.

A few of my neighbors joined me at the literal dead-end of Main. They slouched against the edge of an asphalt slab like worn shipwreck survivors. I nodded and they nodded back. There wasn’t much to say. We surveyed the absolute eradication of our town in silence.

"The Corner of Beach and Main"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

Walking back towards my bike, I came upon a wedding photo face up in the mud. I studied the eager, hopeful faces, but didn’t recognize them. Where were these people now? Tears ambushed me again. Like some madwoman, I carefully worked to dislodge the picture from the mud, ignoring the magnitude of the ruin around me. I somehow hoped to save the photo and return it to the owners, but it fell to pieces in my hand - a shredded symbol of the countless losses around me. I wailed aloud from rage and frustration. Jack was the only witness to this tantrum and he burrowed his head beneath my arm. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he wanted to make it better. I pulled him against me tightly and cried into his fur.

I headed back up Main Street and saw my friend Doug. My spirits lifted immediately as we greeted each other with enthusiastic hugs. Doug always exudes a relaxed humor and that morning was no exception. He’s a hurricane hunter by profession - flying planes into the heart of storms for a living probably gives one a certain immunity to anxiety.

As I’d guessed, he’d evacuated the arts center before the storm. He’d stayed with six friends at the Bay Town Inn, a historic bed and breakfast on the beach. He reported that all had survived. I wouldn’t find out until later exactly what they’d survived: The Bay Town Inn no longer existed. When I pressed Doug for details that morning, he answered with characteristic understatement: “It was one heck of a ride.”

Further up Main, the houses had flooded but were still mostly intact. I met a truck inching through the debris towards the front. The driver was Ernie, owner of a popular beach bar. Ironically, he’d named it “The Good Life,” - something we’d all had a shot at in the Bay. “Have you been down there?” he said, pointing to the Gulf. I nodded my head, knowing what he was going to ask next. I didn’t want to break the news to him, but I was trapped. “How is it?” he asked. Tears came to my eyes when I said, “Ernie, it’s all gone.”

He shook his head and choked for a moment. Then he smiled. “Cheer up, baby,” Ernie said, patting me on the shoulder. “There’ll be another Good Life.”

I knew he wasn’t talking about his bar. Before he left, Ernie offered his help. “Honey, let me know if you need anything,” he said. He drove away to look at the eroded bank where the sea had devoured his dream.

I didn’t have time to escape before another friend pulled up with her two teenaged sons in the back seat. I was both glad and horrified to see them: Their home had faced the beach. “What’s it like?” she asked. I didn’t want to lie. “The whole front’s gone,” I said. She looked stricken, so I started to be evasive. “But I haven’t actually been down to your house….” My neighbor took a deep breath, looked back at the impassive faces of her sons, and attempted a smile. I wished her luck as they left. It didn’t do any good. Later, I’d see for myself that only the pilings of their home remained.

I’d always understood why messengers got shot, but now I wondered why more messengers didn’t shoot themselves. I had to get off Main before I ran into anyone else. Jack and I navigated back streets the rest of the way home. The temperature was in the high nineties and even Jack was dragging. By the time I arrived, I was drenched with sweat and liberally spattered with mud.

Augusta and most of her family had gone to see what they could salvage from their houses, while Donald had walked to his job at the local power company. He’d been teamed with some Georgia Power linemen and they’d dropped off juice and bottled water for the household. I helped myself to a juice while I rested in the shade of the porch.

Jimmie joined me and we discussed his mother, Mimi. On my ride, I’d heard from a neighbor that the hospital had been destroyed. It was clear to us now that no ambulance would arrive, no medics. Mimi was bedridden for the most part and Jimmie was concerned about sanitation. He’d been helping clean her, but she was understandably mortified. I was mortified myself – I hadn’t understood the situation fully. I’m not a nurse, but agreed to try my best.

I went into the bedroom where Mimi lay atop the sheets, listening to the news on her battery radio. She’d kept it pressed against her ear since the storm began, even when she slept. With no air conditioning or fans, the room was stifling, but Mimi never complained. I asked how she was feeling.

She didn’t waste time with niceties - she knew why I’d come. “Oh darling,” she protested. “I don’t want you to do this. I feel so useless. I want to get up and help you, but all I can do is lay here and be a burden. Just give me some water. I can take care of myself.”

Pretending to be stern, I told her to quit fussing. I spread out garbage bags across the bed and cleaned her with water from my bathtub reservoir and a pack of disinfectant wipes. I was terrified I’d do something wrong; if her catheter became infected, without antibiotics, her life could be at risk. Mimi kept trying to apologize and I chattered to distract her until we were finished. For lack of other disposable options, I cut up some old t-shirts and swaddled her with them, joking about the new fashion statement. I helped her into a clean gown and then with fresh water, sponged off her face and hands. “Thank you,” she said. “That feels wonderful!” Then she asked, “Do you have any perfume?” We both laughed and I gave her a spritz of my favorite.

Mimi dozed off listening to the news of her hometown, New Orleans. It wasn’t good. The levies had broken; most of the city was underwater. I only hoped Joe’s daughter, Robyn, was in Baton Rouge with her sister. Briefly, I thought of my other friends who lived in the city, then slammed that mental door tightly shut. There was nothing I could do for New Orleans and I needed to focus on the troubles at hand.

I took two more treks on the bike that day. The first was to the foot of the Bay Bridge pilings, two miles away. Doug had told me that it was the one place in town where cell phones would work. A small crowd had gathered, but few people actually talked on their phones. I tried my own cell phone. No signal. Finally, I asked one woman whose phone was working if I could make a quick call to my parents. She kindly agreed, but the signal died before I could enter the number.

"The Bay Bridge"
photo by Ellis Anderson

Around sunset, Joe and I biked to Saint Stanislaus, a school close to my house. The campus overlooks the beach and we’d heard it was another cell phone hot spot. The sun was beginning to set and it was the time when many residents used to exercise along the beach. That evening, people had come only with the hope of making a simple phone call to let loved ones know they were alive.

"Sunset at the Beach"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

No one was having any luck, but I saw several people I knew, including my friends Grady and Sally. They’d evacuated with their three children to Grady’s office at Stennis Airport, more than six miles north of the coast. Even there, the water had risen over six feet. I was staggered at the news - that meant the entire southern part of the county had been inundated by the surge.

Grady and Sally were both shaken. Not only had their home been destroyed, they’d had an ugly run-in with some would-be looters. While they and some friends were picking though the rubble of the house, two men had confronted and threatened them. The incident ended without violence, but my idealistic bubble burst when I heard their story. Although Bay St. Louis was an extraordinary community, apparently it wasn’t perfect.

I can’t remember eating dinner that night. Between the heat, the exhaustion and the stress, I’m sure I didn’t care. The final defeat of the day came when I realized I’d lost the new prescription glasses I’d gotten three days before. Somehow, the case had popped out of my pocket while I’d been biking. Finding it in the debris and mud would be impossible. It was a relatively small loss, yet utterly disheartening.

Joe chose to camp out in his driveway, to escape the heat inside. I crawled into my loft bedroom in the center hallway of my own house. I’d covered the bed with plastic before the storm, so it was still relatively dry. James and his mother slept in rooms to one side of me, Augusta’s family spread out on the porch, where it was cooler.

Despite the story of the looters, I left the windows and front doors open for cross-ventilation. I don’t have screens anywhere in my house, because I don’t need them. I have bats. A small colony nests between two beams under my house. They’re my secret treasures, patrolling my yard in the evenings, devouring every bug that dares come near. That night, two bats somehow got into my room, something that had never happened before. At first I was anxious, wondering if they’d accidentally land on me as I slept. Finally, I decided to be grateful I had personal guardians for the evening. No mosquito would draw my blood this night. In the eerie silence, I heard the membranes of their wings fluttering, felt swift movements in the air close above my face. The darkness was thick as velvet. The entire coast was stripped of artificial light and through the open windows, I looked out at stars I’d never seen before.

As I lay in bed, the bats winging overhead, I thought about The Good Life. The neon sign for the bar had always amused me. It rarely worked perfectly, although Ernie had tried many times through the years to fix it. Sometimes, it said “The _______ Life.” Sometimes it just read “Good,” and occasionally just “The.” It seemed like a metaphor for my life in general. Years before, I’d written a poem about the sign. It wasn’t a very good poem, but it seemed prophetic when I remembered it that night:

The Good Life

The “Good” part is burned out
What remains is “Life.”
It glows a steady phosphorescent blue
against the dark sky over the Bay

The red border flashes
off and on
with typical neon anxiety.
The caption underneath
blinks as well:

“live entertainment”

E.A. 1996

"The Good Life" - two weeks after the storm
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

(text and photographs copyright 2006 Ellis Anderson and Joe Tomasovsky)

The Story of Bay Town Inn

from my storm journal - 3/21/06
_______________________

When I ran into my friend Doug Niolet the day after the hurricane, he told me that he'd ridden out the storm with six others at the Bay Town Inn, a beachfront bed and breakfast. That morning he didn't elaborate - his only comment was "it was quite a ride." At the time, I didn't even know that the local landmark had been completely demolished during the storm. It would be weeks before I heard some of the jaw-dropping details. Then in late October, Nikki Nicholson, owner of the Inn and one of the survivors, asked me if I'd write up an account of the story.

All seven of the people who chose to stay in the Inn are my friends and neighbors. I don’t need a writer’s imagination to fill in the details – I’m simply recording their story, interweaving five of the individual accounts. The other two survivors declined to be interviewed. I've changed their names to Kay and Dan Stevens to respect their privacy.

The experience of this group is riveting because they barely escaped with their lives. Yet they overcame what must have been an imperative to panic and took care of each other, offering what they could despite their personal peril. While this account may be extraordinary, it's not unusual - I've heard dozens of others that are similar. It's actually a typical example of the way people on the coast helped others - both during and after the storm. This may be the story of Bay Town Inn, but it's also the story of our town.

"The Bay Town Inn Before"
photo courtesy of Ann Tidwell

"The Bay Town Inn After"
photo by Ellis Anderson

___________________________________

Nikki Nicholson straddled the oak branch, lying face down and hugging it with all her might. Her small dog, Maddy was tucked beneath her stomach like a baby. She pressed the dog closer to her, wondering how they’d possibly survive. Each wave that washed over the tree threatened to tear them from the limb and drag them into the seething surge. Nikki had always figured she’d be killed in a plane crash. Now, it looked like all those hours of airport anxiety had been wasted. In a bizarre twist of fate, she was caught in a tree, facing death by hurricane. It seemed like a very strange way to die.

Doug Niolet reached up from his perch on the branch below and held onto Nikki’s boots for dear life. As a professional Hurricane Hunter, forty-eight hours before he’d piloted a plane through the eye of the storm. Now, he was in the center of Katrina again, hoping his branch wouldn’t break. Doug wasn’t sure he was going to die, but he wasn’t sure he’d make it either. He’d seen the others disappear.

After the Bay Town Inn disintegrated around them, seven friends had been forced into the fury of the storm. In the chaos, they’d been separated. Three of them made it to a large oak. The other four had vanished. Doug had watched in horror as Kay Stevens was pulled beneath the water. She didn’t resurface. Her husband Dan had made it to a cluster of smaller trees nearby, but soon after he’d disappeared as well. The elders of the group, Dick and Nadine Stamm, had floated away together on a small section of roof. They’d actually waved good-bye as they sailed past on the makeshift raft. Doug waved back and started praying the rosary. It had been his grandmother’s favorite prayer.

Kevan Guillory had been the last person to make it to the tree. His branch faced the Gulf, so he’d warn Nikki and Doug when a breaker was about to hit. The three friends were trapped for the duration - they couldn’t go higher and they couldn’t go down. Whenever the sea slammed into them, Kevan would bury his face in the resurrection ferns that grew on the branch and ask himself one question: “What in the cornbread hell led us to this?”

"Telling the Story"
Nikki, Doug and Kevan (l. to r.) tell their story while I'm typing it onto my computer
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

************

Nikki and Kevan became worldwide celebrities the day after the storm when CNN repeatedly aired a short interview with the two survivors. But the network missed the best parts of the story. Exactly who are these people? What kept them all from panicking in the worst of circumstances? And the question that Kevan asked of himself is one of the most compelling – what led seven mature, intelligent people to ride out the storm in a beachfront bed and breakfast?

As with most Katrina stories, this one begins with Camille. Thirty-five years before, the “storm of the century” had charged directly into Bay St. Louis with a 27-foot tidal wave and gusts of over 200 miles an hour. Heeding evacuation warnings, Dick and Nadine Stamm left their home in the lower elevation Cedar Point neighborhood. They took refuge in the 2nd Street Elementary School. The school was only a block from the beach, but it’d been built on the “bluff” of old town - some of the highest ground bordering the Gulf of Mexico.

It was a good decision. The Stamm’s own house on Cedar Point flooded, but the couple weathered Camille at the school with no problems. When the storm relented at daybreak, Dick walked to his boss’s house that faced the beach. He found his employer and three children unharmed. Their stately historic home was high and dry. The monster storm had only broken a few windows of the sturdy building. This was the house that would later become Bay Town Inn. This was a house the Stamms thought they could count on.

Decades later, when Katrina took aim for the Bay, the Stamms again considered their options. Nadine was now in her late seventies and Dick was 81. Although they were both active and vital, they were concerned about attempting the drive to their daughter’s house a hundred miles north. News reports warned of impossibly clogged highways.

The Stamms debated and then called their friend, Nikki Nicholson, owner of the Bay Town Inn. Nikki assured them of a warm welcome at the bed and breakfast. The last of her paying guests departed Sunday morning, so she had plenty of room. They’d all be very comfortable, even if they lost electricity.

Nikki had no qualms about staying in her house or in sheltering others for the storm. She’d purchased the Bay Town Inn three years before from Doug’s mother-in-law. During the transition, she’d become great friends with the family and integrated easily into the close-knit artists’ community. Nikki knew the house was a Camille veteran, but she also understood the principles of structural integrity. Built in 1899, it’d been constructed to withstand storms from the Gulf. Large beams ran the length of the building - it was solid as a rock. They don’t make houses like that anymore.

So when Dan and Kay Stevens called, she didn’t hesitate to offer them refuge as well. Kay’s an artist who worked part time at the Inn. The Steven’s house was located in Waveland. Although it was well back from the water, Kay wanted to be on the safe side and move to higher ground. The Bay Town Inn seemed the perfect solution, because their large dog limited their evacuation options.

The chain of events that led Doug Niolet to stay began three days before the storm. When he reported to work at Keesler Air Force base on Friday, he wasn’t slated to fly. Another pilot had problems, so Doug volunteered to take the Friday night mission. For six hours, he flew in and out of Katrina’s eye. When he entered the hurricane, it had just passed over Florida and had weakened to a “1.” By the time he headed back to Keesler early Saturday morning, the storm had intensified to a “3.”

Saturday afternoon, Doug was back in the Bay boarding up his various properties. His old friend and partner, Kevan, worked alongside. The two men moved around town, securing doors, screwing plywood over windows, stacking sandbags where heavy rains might cause drainage problems. At one point, Kevan asked Doug’s opinion of the storm.

“Well,” Doug said. “It’s not the worst storm I’ve ever flown into, but somebody’s world will never be the same.” He didn’t realize he was talking about his own.

Doug finally slept Saturday night, assuming he’d be flying again the next morning. But by Sunday, the base had decided to move operations to Houston. Relieved of work obligations, he and his wife Vicki came up with a game plan.

Doug was inclined to stay through the storm. He’d be able to help Kevan with final preparations and then get a jump-start on the clean-up afterward. At the same time, he was uncomfortable with the thought of his wife remaining with him. He urged her to evacuate. Vicki wasn’t really worried about her husband’s safety if he chose to stay - several times a year, he was required to attend survival training exercises - but she wasn’t as confident with her own emergency skills. She and her mother packed and headed for Jackson early that afternoon.

Doug and Kevan spent the rest of the day boarding up various buildings and houses, including the Bay Town Inn. They were old hands at the procedure and by the end of the day, they’d completed most of their goals. They still had a punch list of last minute tasks, but since the storm wasn’t predicted to hit until late Monday morning, they figured they’d have time the next day. The group of seven gathered at the Inn. Kevan, a native Cajun and an excellent cook, baked a crawfish pie for dinner.

After the meal, they retired early. Kay and Dan slept in the small guest cottage directly behind the main house. Kevan went next door to keep watch on a friend’s place at 200 Beach. It was a solid brick building that had also made it through Camille unharmed. He moved into the 2nd floor for the night. Doug had originally planned on staying at the Lumberyard, the Niolet’s art center. But in the end, he decided that the Stamms and Nikki might appreciate some extra moral support. The die was cast. Doug, Nadine and Dick Stamm and Nikki took rooms on the first floor of the Inn.

"The Bay Town Inn in the Evening"
photo courtesy of Ann Tidwell

When Nikki got up at three in the morning, she found Doug listening to storm reports on the television. The hurricane had moved faster than expected and was already in full swing. She made a pot of coffee for him and then headed back to bed. Doug eventually returned to his room as well, but was too disturbed to sleep. Forecasters still predicted surges to peak at 18-20 feet, yet one announcer had made a comment that stuck in his head: No one really knew for sure.

Doug lay in bed wondering if it were too late to leave. He tried to reassure himself that no matter what happened, the building would still be standing in the end. The house sat on land that was over 25 feet above sea level. It’d been built an additional five feet off the ground. Even if the surge rose to an unheard of thirty feet, the house wouldn’t flood. It hadn’t in 1969. And this storm would never match the ferocity of Camille.

At five in the morning, he gave up on sleep. Nikki joined him in the kitchen for coffee. The pot she’d made earlier was still warm, although they’d lost electricity an hour or so before. Frustrated that the television didn’t work, Doug remembered a battery-operated TV that he had at the Lumberyard Arts Center, four blocks away. He decided to go get it and called on Kevan to ride shotgun. His friend grumbled at being roused so early, but agreed it might be a good idea. The Stamms were still sleeping and since Nikki was reluctant to be left without company, she joined the men for the expedition. She kept her notepad in hand as they climbed into Doug’s truck. Nikki was determined to keep a thorough record of events.

They drove along the beach road, which was built a good twenty feet above sea level. Water lapped across the top of the pavement, so the three assumed they were seeing the peak of the predicted surge. Power wires flailed like streamers in the wind, tree branches tumbled across their path. Turning onto Main Street, Doug answered a phone call. It was his daughter, Courtney, demanding to know where he was.

Doug’s answer was spontaneous as a nearby building blew away. “Whoa!” he said. “Look at that roof going off!”

Courtney was livid when she realized her father was still in the Bay. She began shouting at him, “Dad, you’re not qualified to hunt hurricanes on the ground!”

Doug tried to reassure her and signed off. He continued slowly down the treacherous roads. It took the group almost thirty minutes to retrieve the television, but they made it back the bed and breakfast without mishap. Kevan returned to his post next door, while Doug tried to get more news. It had been a wasted trip. The battery TV worked, but stations were no longer broadcasting.

In a last ditch attempt for information, he called his headquarters in Houston to ask when the eye of the storm would pass. The mission commander, Roger, was incredulous to hear that Doug was still in the Bay and asked his exact location. The answer turned out to be another inadvertent prophecy.

“Why, we’re diving off the first floor of the bed and breakfast,” Doug cracked. “And we’re getting ready to go up to the 2nd floor and do high dives.”

Roger wasn’t amused, but promised to call back shortly with the information.

About seven o’clock, events began a rapid downhill slide. The wind peeled plywood away from some of the windows and rain started pushing beneath the exterior doors. Doug called Kevan and asked for help at the Inn. He also tried calling back his commander for the all-important location of the eye. There was no answer. His cell phone wasn’t getting through.

To get back to the Inn, Kevan had to wade across a lawn now covered with ankle-deep water. Several times he had to stop and crouch down. The thundering gusts threatened to carry him off. Directly across the street, he saw that The Dock of the Bay was beginning to show signs of defeat. The popular restaurant was built on the bluff overlooking the beach. Kevan saw that bit by bit, the building was dismembered by the wind.

Once inside, he helped as the others began taking emergency measures. The group built a “nest” in the most sheltered part of the building. They chose a nook in the center of the house, behind the massive staircase on the first floor. They furnished it with blankets and pillows, flashlights and water. Everyone sealed their most valuable belongings - wallets, laptops, personal papers – into plastic bags and piled them in the nest. Nikki even thoughtfully protected her current needlepoint project.

"The Staircase of the Bay Town Inn"
photo courtesy of Ann Tidwell

Her last contact with the outside world came when she answered a phone call from a friend about 8 a.m. As Nikki talked, she looked out the back windows and noticed the water rising on her patio. When her friend asked if the worst had passed, she saw her grill begin to float. “I don’t think so,” she said with foreboding.

At 8:30 the Stamms took a coffee break and sat at the kitchen table. They were calm - in fact, according to Dick, “dumb and happy.” Through the windows, they could see Demontluzin Street, which ran along one side of the house. It was quickly becoming a river. Suddenly, they saw their car cruise by, floating away down the street. Kay’s car had been parked in front of the guest cottage. Now it butted against the walls of the small house repeatedly, riding a rising surf. The headlights flashed as the car alarm signaled an emergency.

Nadine retreated to the nest and took over the job of news gatherer. She pressed the portable radio to her ear and searched the airwaves with quiet composure. Dick went into the dining room off the kitchen to check for leaks. A renegade gust of wind broke a window, blasted through the house and slammed the door behind him. When he struggled to open it, the air pressure in the house worked against him. The rest of the group came to his rescue. Together, they were able to force back one of the giant pocket doors leading from the dining room to the hallway and finally release Dick from his prison.

The guest cottage in the back had its own problems. It had been built at ground level. When the water first started slipping under the doors, the Stevens decided to make for the main house. Together, they struggled across the patio in chest-high water, important papers held over their heads. Kay managed to somehow hang on to her dog’s leash as he swam.

They burst in through the kitchen door of the house, grateful to have reached refuge. But the air pressure was still playing tricks. When the back door opened, the tremendous suction broke open the massive front door, which had been boarded over. Doug and Kevan raced to wrestle it back into submission. They used a portable drill to screw the door shut.

While the Stevens dried off in the kitchen, the rest of the team worked furiously as the storm found new ways to breach the walls. Dick barricaded off the laundry room, which had lost part of the roof. Nadine reluctantly made the sad report that the storm was intensifying, while Doug wedged various utensils against the kitchen windows to keep them shut. Kevan and Nikki decided to check on the 2nd floor.

Upstairs, rain was being forced through the windows, so the two grabbed some towels. When they tried to secure one window, glass exploded into the room. Shards sliced into Kevan’s chin and foot. They gave up and pushed a heavy armoire in front of the opening. Nikki found some hydrogen peroxide to put on Kevan’s cuts and they joined the others on the first floor.

Downstairs a new battle was being waged to fortify the front door. The water now reached two feet over the level of the porch. Waves beat furiously against the house, trying to gain entrance. The men used a shutter from an upstairs closet to wedge against the door. They overturned a table and braced it against the shutter. Finally, to complete the emergency barricade, they jammed a cutting board between the table and the foot of the stairs. In the end, they had a contraption that exerted considerable force against the door.

Kevan became the official lookout. The enormous front and side windows of the house were boarded over, but the plywood left a small gap at the top. He dragged a stool around the rooms, standing on it to peek over the boards. After looking through one of the front windows, he quietly called Doug over to him.

“Don’t say anything to the others,” he said. “But you’ve got to see this. The Dock of the Bay is in the front yard.”

"The Dock of The Bay Restaurant After the Storm"
photo by Vicki Niolet

(text and photos copyright 2006 by Ellis Anderson and Joe Tomasovsky)

Note: Vicki Niolet has just published a book of photographs depicting Bay St. Louis after the storm. It's called "Parting Shots." If you're interesting in purchasing a copy, e-mail her at vniolet@earthlink.net

Room Number Five

from my storm journal - 4/7/06
___________________

Doug peered out the window, straining to see through the sheets of rain. The building across the street had vanished. Large sections of the restaurant churned in the water covering the front yard. Frenzied waves drove the debris against the foundations of the Bay Town Inn, shaking the house with every slam of the surge.

Kevan and Doug announced it was time to move the nest to the 2nd floor. Room Number Five was the obvious choice. It was centered in the back of the house, directly at the top of the stairs. The room was flanked on one side by a walk-in closet and on the other by a bath.

"Room Number Five"
photo courtesy of Ann Tidwell

The group began hauling their possessions and supplies up the stairs. The Stamms depended on several medications and Nadine made sure she had them all with her in a black garbage bag. She also carried up the portable radio, even though the reception had been reduced to static.

Nadine knew they were in for a “very challenging time.” She settled on a daybed, with Kay at her feet. Kay chanted a soothing mantra, while Nadine repeated more traditional prayers. When Nikki commented on their composure, Nadine smiled. “It’s in God’s hands now,” she said serenely.

The men remained below trying to hold the doors against the Gulf of Mexico. The waves pounded against the front of the house as if an outside army sensed victory and had taken up battering rams. The noise was deafening. Doug took a last look through the cracks in the plywood. The front porch was no longer attached to the building. “That’s extreme,” he thought. He warned the other men that it was time to go and they fled up the steps, crowding with the women into Room Five.

Kevan was the last to leave. “Just as I turned to go upstairs,” he said, “the water broke through. A gush raged through the house. At the same time, water poured in the back from the kitchen. I’d taken my glasses off, but could see the waves coming up the stairwell. They just slashed against the back wall where the nest had been. Then the entire staircase broke loose. It went crashing through to the back of the house. I wondered, now how we are going to get down from the second floor? That’s when I first realized we really had a problem.”

At the top of the stairs, Kevan veered off into the doorway of a bedroom directly to the left. From this vantage point, he could see the rest of the group huddled in Room Five, but he could also look down into the gaping chasm below. Breakers smashed through the bottom floor, hurling antique furnishings against walls that were beginning to break apart. Wave after wave mauled the house with a feral ferocity, ripping away sections as he watched. Finally, the entire front of the building groaned in surrender and fell away into a gorging sea.

The doorway to Number Five suddenly opened directly onto an ocean writhing in fury. The front rooms no longer existed. The floor of the hallway had been sucked into the surf. The room behind Kevan began to distort as it pulled away from the back of the house. Nikki screamed when she saw Kevan’s danger. He leaped towards the others from the crumbling remains of his perilous perch. Propelled by adrenaline, he crossed a six-foot rift that dropped away to certain death below. Indiana Jones couldn’t have done it better. He made it to the threshold of Room Number Five and was pulled by the others into the last safe haven.

But it wasn’t a haven for long. Number Five became the only survivor of the house when the remaining back rooms on both sides were pulled away. As the final supports of the first floor gave way, it settled onto the heaving surface of the sea. The walls and ceiling of the room began to cave in on the group. The men struggled to keep it from collapsing onto them while the floor rippled beneath their feet. They weren’t able to save the front wall. Their last protection from the elements was inexorably drawn into the water.

Seven people and two dogs found themselves in a shifting shell, open to the fury of the storm. “Hello, Gulf of Mexico,” Doug thought. He realized that the room had become a little boat and “one that was about to sink.” Gusts blasted them with bullets of rain. As they fought to keep the ceiling from falling onto them, the room twisted in the water. The open front of Number Five now faced towards the rear of the lot. A large oak tree that grew in the backyard came into view.

Doug shouted to be heard over the wind, urging his friends to enter the water and make for the tree. Nadine, still calm, answered resolutely. “I’m not going into the water,” she said. “I can’t swim.” Dick Stamm held her close against his side. He was going nowhere without his wife.

The group faced eminent death, but the Cajun in Kevan couldn’t resist the opening for a good line. As he strained against the ceiling to hold it in place, he looked at Doug and grinned. “Houston, we have a problem,” he yelled.

Kevan and Doug didn’t need to speak next to determine their roles. Doug ushered Nikki into the dark and raging surge with the Stevens, while Kevan stayed with the Stamms, waiting for a miracle.

Dan Stevens persuaded his wife to release their dog from its leash. He led Kay into the water and together, they fought their way to the tree. Dan helped Kay grab hold of a sturdy branch, then was pushed ahead by the current. He finally managed to catch a clump of smaller trees further up the street.

Nikki held her dog close to her. She scuttled crablike across the debris floating on top of the water, using it like a series of rafts. When she arrived at the tree, she saw that Kay was pinned against the trunk by the same tide of wreckage. Yet Kay took Maddy into her arms, allowing Nikki to climb onto a limb. When Nikki was secure, Kay handed up the dog.

Doug kept his head above the water, but the mass of floating debris knocked against him with every swell of the sea. When he reached the tree, he was able to pull himself above the deadly layer of lumber. Once anchored on a branch, he grasped the hand of Kay, who was still pinned. Each undulation of the water pinched her between the debris and the trunk of the tree, threatening to cut her in half. He couldn’t manage to pull her from the water, so hung onto her arm in desperation.

Meanwhile, Kevan and the Stamms got their miracle. A section of roof floated by. It began to butt up against the open part of Room Five, as if beckoning to the Stamms. Kevan struggled to hold back the last remaining walls as Dick helped Nadine slide into the water. Her husband encouraged her as she did the unthinkable. “You can do it,” he said. “You can do this. I’m right here with you.”

Nadine says that she “felt miraculous guidance with every step. Our bodies were not harmed in any way. I didn’t step on nails. Nothing even caught our clothes. We tried to catch a tree trunk, but the Lord didn’t want that, so we floated on a little branch. The water doused over me once and then went down to above my waist. When we got to the piece of roof, Dick said, ‘I’ll help you up.’”

Once on-board their makeshift raft, Nadine lay down. Dick spooned against her back and covered her body with his own to protect her from the cold and rain. He couldn’t see where they were going, but it didn’t matter. He was with his wife.

As they drifted away, Nadine lay against the shingles, still clutching the plastic bag that held their medications. Dick’s arms surrounded her as if they were nesting birds. Their friends noticed the extraordinary expression of peace on both faces. “The Stamms were together and that was all that counted - the two of them were ready to face anything, even death. They may have been floating away to never-never land, but it looked like they’d be alright with that as long as they died together.”

Kevan had entered the water right behind the Stamms and made it to the tree in time to wave good-bye as they passed. He joined Doug in more attempts to pull Kay from the water, but even their combined strength couldn’t free her. Kay was in agony from the heavy debris battering her torso. If the brutal beating continued, the men realized she would soon die. Finally, in a desperate effort to save her, they shoved at the debris pile with all their strength, trying to push it away from her body. But Kay was impossibly tangled in the mass of lumber. As she moved away with the debris, they were forced to release their hold on her. Kevan was the last to let go of her hand. He watched in horror as she lost consciousness and her face slipped beneath the water. He was certain she was dead.

The island of debris carried Kay up the street towards where Dan clung to the top of a flimsy crepe myrtle bush. To get his attention, the three in the oak screamed together, “loud enough to be heard in Biloxi.” But the gusts whipped away their cries and the pile washed past Dan unnoticed. The friends saw it move swiftly up Demontluzin Street, following the path of the Stamms. Kay’s head did not break the surface again. Shortly after, Dan disappeared from their view as well.

For the next two hours, Nikki, Doug and Kevan clung like barnacles to the oak. At times, Nikki would reach over to Kevan and touch him for reassurance. He encouraged her by shouting, “Just hang on! As long as you don’t lose your grip, you’ll be O.K.” Maddy squirmed beneath her with typical terrier impatience, but Nikki only tightened her grip. After all they’d been through together, she wasn’t about to lose her dog now. She thought about her brother the priest and her mother, who had passed away. She wondered if her mother was watching her from the other side.

To steady her, Doug held on to Nikki’s boots dangling from above. He tried to watch the storm, but it was difficult to see anything. When he opened his eyes, the rain drove into them. If he shut them, the salt stung ferociously. He silently continued praying for his own life and those of his companions, yet he felt a quiet acceptance. He ended his prayers the way he always did: Thy will be done.

Kevan spent the long hours “kissing the tree” and contemplating his surreal situation. He marveled over the events of his life that had led him to that particular place and time. Kevan wasn’t sure why he’d ended up hanging on to a tree in the middle of a monster hurricane, but he had a sense that he was fulfilling an odd destiny. His humor never failed him. After one particularly violent round of waves had submersed the trio, he shouted down to Doug. “Niolet, next time you want to go hunting a hurricane in a tree, don’t call me!”

Finally, Kevan noticed the wind shifting to the South. Nikki watched as the water began to recede slowly. Suddenly, she felt as if she had regained the ability to breathe. It began to look like they might just make it after all. The group waited another endless hour before they thought about leaving their roost.

As the surge retreated back into the Gulf, a new problem emerged – how were they going to get down? Doug was on the lowest branch, which was still at least eight feet from the ground. He’d lost a shoe in the escape, so was reluctant to jump into the muddy water that still covered the yard. While it looked fairly shallow, he could see part of a picket fence directly beneath him, strung out like a line of pungee stakes.

Doug realized that for some reason, he was wearing a towel around his neck. He supposed it had been white at one time - now it was completely brown. He draped it over his branch and lowered himself tentatively into the water below. Nikki readied herself to go next.

Then, from her vantage point of the branch, she looked in the direction of State Street, the next block over. She noticed two figures waving to get her attention. They shouted across the debris and the wide lake of standing water that separated them from the tree. No one could hear their words over the wind, but Nikki was jubilant when she recognized one of the men as Dan Stevens. Dan and the stranger were dragging a makeshift ladder and apparently wanted to help. However, the group agreed that crossing the lake would be too risky. They signaled that they were safe and continued on their own.

Nikki handed Maddy off to Kevan and using Doug’s towel technique, scrambled down with his assistance. Kevan gently lowered the dog and followed. They turned in the direction of the only high ground in sight – an enormous pile of sand. It had been deposited by the surge at the foot of DeMontluzin, where the street had once met the beach road.

Exhausted, the three friends rested on the mound for several minutes and tried to get their bearings. The sense of disorientation was overwhelming. They could barely recognize each other – a sticky, black silt covered them head to toe. Even the landscape around them was no longer familiar. They might have been standing on the surface of another planet. There was no sign of the Bay Town Inn, nothing to mark where it had stood. The stretch of beach road that had formerly been lined with buildings was now barren. The street itself had been eaten away.

They picked their way across the shredded remains of their town to a neighbor’s house that was somehow still standing. The bottom floor had been demolished, but the upstairs had survived intact. In the kitchen, the group found Cokes and V-8 juice, which they gulped down. On the 2nd floor, they rummaged through closets, hunting for clothes. Doug and Kevan were delighted to discover new men’s bathing suits in their sizes. Everyone changed out of their wet rags, then found dry beds and collapsed. Storm-force winds hammered the house, ripping off sheets of metal roofing overhead. Kevan was kept awake by the racket, but Nikki and Doug were asleep in minutes.

Just a block away, the Stamms were sleeping too. Their raft had floated up DeMontluzin, passing over a large oak that had fallen across the street. When the water began to recede, the tree acted as a roadblock, preventing the raft from being swept out to sea. The roof section had settled gently onto a thick layer of mud. Dick helped Nadine down and they slogged across the street to a row of standing houses. Dick chose one that looked as if it’d had only flooded a few feet inside. He broke in through a side window and gallantly opened the front door for Nadine. The food in the refrigerator was still cold, so they ate for the first time since early morning. In one of the bedrooms, a four poster king-sized bed provided a luxurious resting place. The antique had been set up on wooden blocks, so even the bedding was dry. They lay down and both slept soundly, despite the winds still raging above them.

By mid-afternoon, they were wakened by a call from the front door. A trustee from the county jail was making a house-to-house search for survivors. He introduced himself as Jeff and told the Stamms he’d escort them to the sheriff’s office and jail a few blocks away. Nadine had lost her slippers in the surge, so Jeff rooted through the closet until he found a pair of men’s shoes she could wear.

The jail had been converted to a makeshift MASH unit. When they arrived, the Stamms were relieved to find Dan and Kay already there. Kay was alive, but in grave condition. During a search of the neighborhood, two deputies had found her and carried her back to the jail.

Semi-conscious, she lay on a thin bed under layers of blankets, shivering from exposure and shock. Everyone was concerned about internal injuries she'd almost certainly sustained from the battering. Her breathing was labored. Powerless, Dan sat by her side as she gasped. The local hospital was in ruins and the roads leading there were impassable. Medical help would have to come from the outside world and it wasn’t going to come quickly.

Dan wasn’t in such good shape himself. At first, he’d made his stand against the surge by hanging tenaciously on to the flimsy crepe myrtle bushes. Finally, he found refuge in a wind-beaten house on State Street, about half a block from where the Inn had stood. A man who had stayed there for the storm helped him inside. When the water went down, the neighbor went with Dan to search for Kay. Shortly after, the two had spotted Nikki, Doug and Kevan climbing out of the tree and attempted a rescue. By the time the Stamms arrived at the jail, Dan been reunited with his wife. Dick and Nadine draped themselves with blankets and remained with the Stevens until the storm was spent.

Kevan found them all there late in the day. When the winds had slackened, he and Doug had left their temporary refuge to check on other neighbors. They walked further inland to a friend’s house. It had flooded on the ground floor and lost a major part of the roof, but it could still provide shelter. They decided to make the home emergency headquarters. The two men broke in without guilt, then found the key to a truck parked in the driveway. The old truck surprised them by starting immediately. They commandeered it and were able to drive part of the way back to the beach to pick up Nikki.

Doug and Kevan were on a roll - etiquette took second place to survival. They raided friends’ freezers for ice and food, taking it back to the “headquarters.” Then Kevan picked up the Stamms and the Stevens from the jail. He settled them for the night into another house Nikki owned on Carroll Street, a few blocks away. It had been battered and flooded, but the upstairs beds were dry. Kay was in a very fragile state. Despite the warm evening air and bundles of blankets, she shivered uncontrollably.

Kevan “borrowed” a grill on the way back to join Nikki and Doug. They'd been joined by two other friends, who'd ridden out the peak of the surge in the cab of their floating pick-up truck. Kevan lit the charcoal and cooked a feast of fried baloney, which he rendered down to a crisp. Food had never tasted so good. The meal at the Inn the night before seemed a million years ago, in a fractured past. They ate in total blackness, the glow of the coals their only illumination.

They didn’t talk a lot. Adrenaline had been replaced by shock. Each was absorbed by the new reality. Their beloved town was destroyed. Friends and neighbors had perished, or like Kay, teetered on the brink. Communication was impossible, so loved ones far away most likely presumed them dead.

Yet, this new reality contained gold as well as grit. Friendship had new meaning and community had become something more than just a word. Courage wore a different face, one that could be lined with age. And faith had broken past the bounds of any church. It roamed freely like a spirit through the dark and broken streets of Bay Saint Louis.

"Bay Town Inn Brochure"
Vicki found this sad reminder buried in mud after the storm
photo by Vicki Niolet

Epilogue

Kay Stevens was flown to a Jackson hospital the next afternoon. She remained hospitalized for several weeks with multiple injuries and respiratory problems. Months later, she was finally given a release from medical care. Dan and Kay's home in Waveland was destroyed. They lost everything they owned. Seven months after the storm, they have moved to the western part of the U.S.

Nikki bounced between different friends’ houses for months after the storm. In February, repairs were completed on her Carroll Street house and she was able to return to the Bay. At this writing (April, 2006), she’s working part time in New Orleans for the Convention and Visitors Bureau. She’d retired from there after 25 years, but after the storm returned to her job on a part-time basis.

She’s hoping to build another Bay Town Inn when the major infrastructure of the town is back in place. “I’d love nothing better,” she tells me, “although I might build it back a little bit further from the beach.” Maddy misses all the treats and pats she got from doting guests when she was a bed and breakfast pet. The only obvious change in the dog since her traumatic experience is that she’s “more cuddly. She lost everything too,” Nikki says. “It’s not been easy for her either.”

"Nikki and Maddy"
standing under "their tree" at the site of the Inn, April 2006
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

Kevan‘s cottage is located in the highest section of Bay Saint Louis. Although it lost part of the roof, it sustained little damage in comparison to the rest of the houses in town. He claims he’d stay for another hurricane, although nowhere close to the beach. He also says that he’s in the Bay to stay. “After making love to a tree for three and a half hours, you kind of feel connected to a place.”

"Kevan"
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

Doug Niolet is still an active Hurricane Hunter although he will retire later in 2006. He says his co-workers had a universal reaction the first time they saw him after the storm. First, they’d embrace him and tell him they were thankful he was alive. Then they’d say they were going to knock the s#@*! out of him for staying. His daughter, Courtney, finally forgave him, but made him promise that next time he’ll evacuate. Doug and his wife, Vicki, plan to remain in Bay Saint Louis and help rebuild.

"Doug and the Debris"
Doug stands behind the site of the Bay Town Inn shortly after the storm
photo by Vicki Niolet

Vicki Niolet heard from her husband the day after the storm when he managed to get a call through on a borrowed cell phone. She returned to town on Wednesday. Their living quarters at the Lumberyard Arts Center had been wrecked, as well as her own art studio. But Vicki doesn’t need a studio to produce art – she began taking photographs immediately. Her moving photo study of Bay Saint Louis after Katrina was published in March 2006. It’s titled “Parting Shots.”

"The Three by the Tree"
Doug, Kevan and Nikki
photo by Joe Tomasovsky

Dick Stamm says he heard that Jeff, the trustee, received a pardon for his heroic efforts the day of the storm.

Nothing remains of Dick and Nadine’s house or any of their belongings. Since October, 2005, they’ve lived in a house next door to their daughter, in the countryside of South Louisiana. As of this writing, they have no plans to rebuild in Bay St. Louis. They say they miss it dreadfully. They always loved the community, but the storm brought new appreciation. Dick says that after the hurricane, there were no strangers in town, only family.

They both credit their faith in God for their survival. I ask Nadine how she remained so calm during life-threatening circumstances. She ducks the question at first, praising the entire group for being cool and levelheaded. She says that none of them had time to be scared. She tells me that thinking back over events, she gets “spiritual goose bumps.”

At last, Nadine hands me the answer in a nutshell. She quotes, “’I will give my angels charge over thee.’ And there’s another scripture that reads, ‘Let not your hearts be troubled.’ I believe that you’re only given what you can bear.”

"God Bless This Tree"
photo by Vicki Niolet

(text and photos copyright 2006 by Ellis Anderson and Joe Tomasovsky. May be reproduced/posted elsewhere with permission)

To purchase a copy of Vicki Niolet's book, "Parting Shots," contact her at vniolet@earthlink.net