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Gulfport couple prayed to make it through the storm to see their daughter
By Ethan Bratton
On August 28, the Fraziers did what most people left in Gulfport did on that Sunday: prepared for Hurricane Katrina.
They boarded their house and removed everything from their yard. After that they helped make sure that their neighbors' houses were well taken care of as well. Early that morning, a friend brought them their daughter's dog from her home in Hattiesburg, and they spent the rest of the day gathering supplies they would need. They made sure they had plenty of gas for their generator and cars.
The Fraziers were forced to stay in the path of the hurricane. Traffic was far too dense for them to safely make the trek to their daughter's home in Hattiesburg, but they weren't too worried. They knew their house was sturdy; it had made it through Hurricane Camille in 1969 without taking on even an ounce of water.
Linda, a retired nurse, says she felt safe in their decision to stay on the coast for the storm.
"I really wasn't worried," she said. "Our house is 14 feet above sea level and it made it through Camille just fine."
But like so many people on the Gulf Coast, the Fraziers underestimated the size and destructive force of Katrina. Like the Fraziers, many people were gauging their response to the storm based on the damage caused by Camille.
The Fraziers started the morning of August 29, the day Katrina struck, with a knock at their door from their neighbors, Barbara and Jerry Gordon. It was 7 a.m. and the water had already begun entering the Gordons' home, which stood significantly closer to sea level than the Fraziers'.
Barbara, a homemaker, and husband Jerry brought their son Matthew, a clerk at a major law firm in Gulfport, to the Fraziers' house.
"We just left the house," she said. "We couldn't stop and get anything; the water was already so high on our street that we had to swim to get to Brad and Linda's. We left our cats and all my jewelry where it was in the house."
At this point, the Fraziers weren't so confident that the water would stay out of their house. All five people started to put important things, such as pictures and keepsakes, onto higher ground. Then the water started coming into the Fraziers' house
Brad, a 6-foot physical therapist, couldn't move or think fast enough to keep things from being submerged in the water.
"The water started coming in and it was just so fast that I couldn't fathom what to save," he said. "We just started grabbing things and putting them into the attic. We had two dogs with us and one was a 55-pound English bulldog and it took us a while to get them to safety. In 45 minutes the water rose from my ankles to the middle of my chest. That's when we gave up and decided it was time for us to get in the attic."
For the next few hours, all they could do was stare down the attic staircase and watch the water rise to 18 inches from their ceiling. Their daughter called from Hattiesburg at 10:30 a.m. to tell them that a tree had fallen completely through her house. They didn't have the heart to tell her that high water had driven them to the attic.
"When Leigh called, I couldn't bring myself to tell her what was going on here," Linda said. "But, on top of all we were going through, we now were worried about what was happening to our daughter, 100 miles inland."
Leigh, the Fraziers' only child and a senior at USM, knew her parents weren't telling her the full story, though.
"My mom and dad sounded so calm, but I could tell something was going on that they didn't want to tell me about," she said. "I didn't know it then that they were in the attic praying that the water wouldn't rise any more than it already had."
Eventually the water rose in the house on Bayou View Lane to about a foot and a half from the ceiling, more than 10 feet high. Even after it stopped rising, there were hours to wait before the water had receded enough to leave their safe haven in the attic. By late Monday afternoon most of the water had pulled back into the Gulf and the Fraziers ventured down to inspect damage.
When she finally left the attic, Linda didn't want to look at the destruction, which was massive and widespread, that Katrina had caused to her neighborhood. She just wanted to make sure her daughter was okay.
"I left that attic and all I could think about was Leigh," she said. "We had made it through shaken but still together, but we didn't know how Leigh had faired. Then we couldn't call because all the cell phone towers were down. I don't think I've ever been more worried about anything than knowing that my daughter was alright."
When the storm had passed Hattiesburg, Leigh was desperate to get in touch with her parents as much as they were to get in touch with her. A second tree had fallen through her house and one had grazed her garage, shifting the foundation and trapping her car inside.
"The cell phones weren't working here either," she said. "I could call Oxford and get updates from my friends at Ole Miss but that was about it. Finally at dark I tried the radio and there was one station that I could pick up on my shower radio. People were calling in and giving updates on areas around the coast. No one had called in about my neighborhood but people in the area around it were calling in saying they had to swim out of the Racket Club apartments. That's less than a mile from my house. I went to bed that night not knowing if my parents had made it or not."
By Tuesday morning, Linda and Barbara were determined to make it to Hattiesburg to check on Leigh and take the dogs out of harm's way. So the two women packed up Barbara's Mercedes and drove like bandits up State Highway 49.
"I don't know how we did it," Linda said. "I don't think either of us actually were thinking. We just drove. We didn't care if we were on the wrong side of the road or off the road completely, we were getting to Hattiesburg if it was the last thing we did."
When they got about 10 miles away, they finally got through to Leigh's cell phone and both mother and daughter broke down in tears when they heard the other's voice. Barbara and Linda dropped the dogs off at Animal Medical Center in Hattiesburg, spent some time with Leigh and got much needed supplies from a convenience store and from Leigh's house. They then headed back to the Coast
The next few weeks were difficult on the Freziers, who were used to a comfortable standard of living. Brad started carrying a gun when there were riots over bags of ice a few blocks from their house. They began salvaging what was left of the inside of their house and witnessed some of the most unusual sights they had ever seen.
"Our whole street looked like some sort of weird antique bazaar," Brad said. "It literally looked like a bull had come through a convention center, but it was our neighborhood. The Red Cross were coming around in ice cream-like trucks announcing tetanus shots. It was as if we were in '1984.'"
According to official reports, Katrina claimed the lives of more than 1,400 people in Mississippi and Louisiana and the aftermath will cost billions of dollars to repair.
Six months later, the Fraziers still don't have a place of their own to live in. The damage to their home was extensive and major repairs are needed. They aren't leaving the Gulf Coast though. They plan to repair and start anew in the house that their daughter grew up in and in the town where they both have lived for most of their own lives.
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