Katrina's survivors: Three women's journey to recovery

By Dorian Randall
After Katrina Newswire

Photo credit: Kelly Mason Property where Kelly Mason's home once stood

BILOXI — It’s been two years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall and Kelly Mason’s home in Biloxi still hasn’t been rebuilt.

“There are five FEMA trailers on that land because my family lived out there,” the 23-year-old said.
     

Mason, an accounting major at USM, is one of many who were left homeless in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
     

Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005. Thousands were left homeless and traveled to different cities and states to find shelter and support.  The most significant damage happened in New Orleans.  Daily news coverage showed hundreds and thousands in contaminated floodwaters and waiting for help under highway bridges. 
    

Katrina sparked much debate about President Bush, the government’s slow response and problems with FEMA housing and aid.  Recently, State Farm Insurance and other home insurance companies were caught in a bind when policyholders filed lawsuits because the companies would not cover damage done by Hurricane Katrina.
     

Two years have passed and the disaster still lingers, and some southern Mississippi natives are still trying to reconstruct their lives.
     

Mason said she had packed and re-packed because she didn’t know what would happen and thought there would not be much damage done or no hurricane at all.  She said her father assured her they would have a home.  But by Friday, Aug. 26, Mason knew she had to leave home.  Katrina had grown to a Category 5 hurricane.  She wasn’t going to have a home anymore.
     

“We left the day before.  We got to Meridian and we could feel the wind from the hurricane,” Mason said.
     

When she returned to Biloxi, she found some of her family’s belongings blocks away from where her house rested.
     

She said she and her family are moving on, but are struggling to get help from FEMA for property loss.  She said she was told to return funds for property loss because she was no longer living in her apartment but with her father when Katrina hit. 
    

Biloxi native Kristen Jennings was with her family when Katrina arrived.   Although she didn’t lose her home like Mason and many New Orleans residents, she was still affected by the disaster.  Property damage was the farthest thing from the 20-year-old’s mind.
     

“I was really worried about my dad,” she said with the concern still on her face.
     

Jennings’ father, a Biloxi Fire Deputy Chief, was on call at the fire station that was right on the beach.  After the hurricane, her father was dispatched to help with the recovery.  No one heard from him for days.  A church member helped Jennings radio her father.  She said she was glad to know he was fine.
     

Jennings and her family helped the fire department with recovery efforts.  She ran errands and found medicines in pharmacies for those whose medicines were lost in the storm. She said it was weeks before firefighters could go home.  They lived out of the station to stay on call. 
     

Jennings also said that she and her family are doing fine and full recovery is gradually coming.
     

 Katrina didn’t take Annie Laura Cole’s home in Petal either, but it did take her source of food: her vegetable garden.  She had a garden of peas, corn, squash and other vegetables.
     

 “It practically destroyed all that stuff.  It looked like you poured hot water on them,” she said.
     

Cole had been growing her own vegetables for years because she disagreed with the production of America’s vegetables.  She did not want to eat food with unhealthy additives, but Hurricane Katrina stripped her healthy source away.
     

Cole said she was at home with family when Katrina swept away her garden. 
     

“I was just walking from one end of the house to the other,” the retired teacher said.
     

She said the most damage done to her home was that the gutters of her roof were pulled up.
     

The one good thing about Katrina was the company that came for a visit and decided to stay awhile.  Katrina blew four cats to Cole’s little brick house.  Three remain.
     

“We had to put one to sleep,” Cole said.
      

Although Katrina blew away the hope of many Mississippi and Louisiana residents, these three women are slowly, but surely moving on.

 
Dorian Randall and Kelly Mason are senior journalism and accounting majors, respectively, 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.