America's North Shore Journal

South Bend Tribune WAVELAND, Miss. — Davis Martinez and Julie Thibodeaux stuck it out for three months in a tent atop the slab where their mobile home, now slammed against the woods, used to rest. Their FEMA trailer came three weeks ago, and they love it. It’s warm, clean, new. But their daughter, her husband and their 9-month-old and 3-year-old gave up tent life after one week and moved to Alabama. Footlong rats started to snoop. And the Hurricane Katrina stink was horrible — that sickly smell everyone talks about in the areas of standing water. Martinez and Thibodeaux kept a tiny, smoldering fire to mask the odor until it dissipated. The couple used a bucket for a toilet and either buried the sewage or dumped it in a bag in the trash. “It’s amazing what … Read entire article »

Record-Courier Almost every Christmas in their 14-year marriage, Tom and Sally Sagar hosted a huge holiday party. The Sagars would open their Gardnerville Ranchos home to neighbors and friends who would be treated to platters of food and a Christmas wonderland with elaborate decorations covering every surface. This year, the Sagars are counting their blessings as survivors of Hurricane Katrina. They lost everything to the hurricane: The 3,000 square-foot home they built for their retirement in a Gulfport, Miss., suburb and all their belongings except the contents of three suitcases they packed for themselves and Muffy, their 4-pound Chihuahua. The Sagars consider themselves lucky. Sitting at their kitchen table in a home in Chichester Estates they’re renting from a fellow parishioner at St. Gall Catholic Church, Tom Sagar said he has mixed feelings. “I feel guilty and … Read entire article »

WLOX-TV Home sweet home right now for Lee and Chi Chi Bryant is a FEMA trailer at 508 Beach Boulevard in Gulfport. The trailer sits where their 3,000 square foot home used to be before the hurricane. But this pad is short term. “I plan to rebuild,” says Lee Bryant. Neither Hurricane Katrina nor another storm will scare Bryant away from his front deck view of the Mississippi Sound. “I’ll come back again. I was here during Camille, I’m here during Katrina and I’ll be here when the next one gets here hopefully. Lord willing,” he says. But apparently not everyone feels that way. One realtor tells us right now two out of three beach front property owners are hanging up the For Sale sign. … Read entire article »

Daily Press Months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, a team from Colonial Williamsburg that helps with recovery efforts says there’s still much work to be done. “Even though the hurricane hit three months ago, it looks like it struck last week,” said one team member, Travis Fulk. “The people still need a lot of help, and we can’t forget that they need that help.” Fulk was part of a six-person team of architectural conservationists who worked for one week earlier this month in Gulfport, Miss. The team assessed 83 historic homes that were in Katrina’s path to assist the Mississippi agency that coordinates the state’s historic preservation projects. CW has provided similar assistance in other natural disasters. In 1989, it sent conservationists to the historic area of Charleston, S.C., after Hurricane … Read entire article »