Photo credit: Ashley Bryan Fema Trailers

One of the strongest women I know is my 75-year-old great-aunt, and Gulfport resident, Ann Deadeaux. Her Katrina story is a one of rebirth and hope.

Aunt Ann stayed in Gulfport during Hurricane Camille, and it was an experience she thought would be the worst disaster she would ever face. She stayed for many other hurricanes believing that it could never be as bad as Hurricane Camille.

Aunt Ann lives in a neighborhood known as Villa Cove about a mile north of Pass Road . There is a lake in the neighborhood, and a bayou runs through her backyard. After Camille, Aunt Ann and her late husband, Henry, realized the importance of flood insurance, especially with their location.

When she heard that Katrina was expected to hit land as a category five hurricane, Aunt Ann knew it was time to leave.
"I wasn't going to sit there and watch that glass door sway in and out again this time. In Camille I sat there waiting for it to blow out, what if it really did this time?" Aunt Ann said.

Aunt Ann knew it would be bad, but she thought that the most her house would get was one or two feet of water since it is about five feet above ground. She didn't take her pictures from her desk, because she believed they would be fine. She did take one picture with her- a family photo taken eight days before her husband died.

She put her black cat Shadow in his cat carrier, got in the car, and told Shadow to "look around because it probably won't be like this when we get home."

So, Aunt Ann drove to her sister's house in Philadelphia , Mississippi . After a week of waiting it out, she drove to Gulfport wondering if she had a home left.

Her house had flooded. Everything inside, including her pictures, was destroyed. Her neighbors had stayed behind and told her what happened during the storm.

By 9:30 that morning the flood waters were so high that the neighbors had to swim from their one story house to Aunt Ann's upstairs balcony. They broke out one of her upstairs windows, and the entire family, including three dogs, waited out the storm in Aunt Ann's bedroom. It wasn't until about 3:00 that afternoon that the waters went down and the neighbors could see grass again.

One of the neighbors saw a black cat floating down the bayou and rescued it thinking that it was Shadow. When he heard that Aunt Ann had taken Shadow with her, he adopted the cat, so now they have five people, three dogs, and a cat living in a FEMA trailer.

Aunt Ann has been so blessed compared to many people in her neighborhood. She was the only one who had flood insurance. Her son, Rick, is a contractor in North Carolina . He came down to rebuild his mother's house, the same house that his father built years earlier. Rick was able to bring in electricians, plumbers, and construction workers from North Carolina , so Aunt Ann did not have to wait like many people are still having to do.

Aunt Ann stayed with her sister until she got her FEMA trailer in January. For the first few weeks after the storm, she would cook meals to take to the workers at her home.

Aunt Ann had thought about moving because her house is too big for one person. Rick and his wife decided to move into the house, and they built Aunt Ann an apartment above the garage. She moved into her apartment in April.

One year later, the inside of the house is finished and the roof is fixed. All that's left is some siding that needs to be replaced.

"I always knew we could have another hurricane, but I never thought it would be this bad. But that's part of living down here- you do what you have to do, and you move on," said Aunt Ann.

Even with all of Aunt Ann's progress I can't deny that there is still pain and heartache on the Gulf Coast . As we drove up and down Highway 90, one year after the storm, there are still so many reminders of the suffering. The President Hotel, where I've stayed so many times on school trips, is destroyed. The souvenir shops and restaurants that I used to frequent are all gone. Churches are gone. Sections of Highway 90 are still closed.

But among the devastation, life goes on. People are back at work. Kids are back at school. On the one-year anniversary I looked out over the calm water, amazed that it was the same water that had caused all the destruction around me. As I watched, I saw a woman and her dog running up the beach. I don't know her story; she may have lost everything in the storm, but she's doing something that feels normal.

The Gulf Coast will never be the same. We will remember Katrina the way generations before us have remembered Camille. We have to mourn those lost and cry for those who lost everything. We have to remember the coast the way it was, but look forward to its rebirth. We will never forget the pain and heartache Katrina brought us, but one year later, it is time for hope, moving forward and rebuilding.

Ashley Bryan is a junior journalism major at the University of Southern Mississippi. The After Katrina Newswire is a project of the School of Mass Communication and Journalism at USM (www.usm.edu/afterkatrina).  This story can be reprinted with this credit included.