Trapped in her trailer, Sumrall resident wondered if she would live

By Shannon Odom
After Katrina Newswire

SUMRALL — Hiding under the bed with her little dog, listening to trees crash all around her, all she could think about was if she was going to make it out alive.

Shelia Creel decided to weather Hurricane Katrina in her trailer in Sumrall. It was a terrifying experience.

When the storm first began, Creel watched nervously out her windows as trees snapped all around her, and talked with her brother on the phone. He was on his way to get her, because he felt it was too dangerous for her to stay alone. With trees falling across the road as he drove, her brother had to finally turn around. He told her stay put, and he would come for her as soon as he could.

With fear that a tree would soon be falling on her trailer, she began to think of a safe place to hide. Her first thought was the shower, but with the way the trees were falling she felt one might fall there.

Creel's next thought was to hide under her bed. So, there she stayed as she listened to trees smash through her home. With all the crashing, a mirror fell off the wall in her bedroom, shattering into hundreds of pieces on the floor. Too scared to moved, she waited. In time, the winds subsided and the weather calmed.

Once too scared to come from underneath her bed during the storm, Creel was now too scared to come up after the storm had passed for the fear of what she might see. She heard all the crashes, and she knew it couldn't be good.

The sight was unbelievable. Trees fell all through the trailer. One tree fell into the shower that she had earlier wanted to seek protection in.

"I couldn't even walk outside because of all the trees that had fallen. So I just waited for help," Creel said.

And help did come one day later. Creel's brother and nephew came and cut a path to her trailer. She cleaned out the refrigerator, and headed to her sister's house. With thoughts of what she was going to do racing through her mind every minute, Shelia stayed with her sister until power and water was restored before she started to put the pieces of her life back together.

A backhoe service was hired to move the trees and the trailer in preparation for the new trailer she would get many months later. When the trailer was moved, it was split into two pieces and pushed to the side. With a sick feeling in her stomach, Creel tried to rummage through her belongings to find even a few things she could salvage. Now that the trailer was split into, she also had the extra burden of worrying about looters. Most of her clothes, furniture and pictures were water damaged. She had nothing.

"The trailer looked like a war zone. It was awful," Creel said.

Along with almost everyone else affected by the storm, Creel had insurance problems. The insurance company thought it had already sent her a check, and it had not. It took over five months for Creel to receive money to purchase a new trailer and to begin to rebuild her life.

For those five months, Creel jumped around from family to friends' homes. Even though everyone was very welcoming, she never was able to feel really comfortable. She always felt much like a burden. Creel always took food with her to the different homes where she was staying, yet still felt like she should not eat with the families, but ate out instead, for the fear that she was intruding on their lives.

Finally, Creel received the insurance money and was able to start picking up the pieces of her live. She was able to buy a new trailer and all new things. She said if it would not have been for the support of her friends and family, she doesn't know what she would have done. The experience did not break Creel's spirit, and she believes it made her stronger.

"I made it through; that's all that matters. I made it," Creel said.


Shannon Odom is a senior 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.