Hurricane Katrina ushered in a bad era for Davis George.
08/09/2008 10:47
PASCAGOULA – Hurricane Katrina ushered in a bad era
for Davis George.
First he lost his home, then his ability to walk. Nearly three years later, he has them both back.
The morning before the storm, George was working his seasonal job at the Hickory Hill Golf Course in Gautier. He wasn’t too worried; the weather reports were saying Katrina was aimed straight at New Orleans.
A few hours later, now heading straight toward Mississippi, the storm had changed course. George didn’t have much time to do the same.
“I didn’t have time to get anything out but me, my dog and a couple changes of clothes,” he said.
He made quick plans to stay with his parents in Lucedale and raced back early the next day to gauge the damage.
The refrigerator was tipped over; the dryer was on top of the washing machine, not by design, and all of it was resting in two inches of “that stinking hurricane flood mud.”
“It was a total disaster,” George said. “It looked like the Jolly Green Giant had stuck his hand in and swirled everything around.”
George skipped around from his son’s home in Hattiesburg, a condo provided by the golf course and his parent’s home.
Meanwhile, he was trying to rebuild his broken home.
“All I had was studs, roof and slab. I had to build from there up,” he said.
First things first, George headed to the local Allstate office to get his insurance policy money.
The wind-water argument would not escape him.
He stepped into the office, and the receptionist dismissed him with the wave of a hand.
“That’s water damage,” she said.
A “heated discussion” ensued, George citing the fact that the company hadn’t even looked at his property damage. He stormed out after being told he wasn’t eligible for anything.
“It wasn’t an hour later that an Allstate rep from Houston, Texas, called me,” George said.
An agent was sent, and George was eventually awarded $9,000 of his claim.
He received his FEMA trailer in March 2006, parked it out front and soldiered on.
He went to bed one Wednesday night, awoke the next morning and fell straight to the floor while heading for the bathroom.
Overnight George had caved to Guillain-Barre syndrome, falling victim to its paralyzing symptoms.
Guillain-Barre is a disorder in which the immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system, tearing the sheathing off nerve cells, George said. In his most severe state, he was bedridden at the hospital for more than four months, paralyzed from his neck to his ankles.
Guillain-Barre usually occurs a few days or weeks after a person has had symptoms of a respiratory or gastrointestinal viral infection, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
George suspects the hurricane.
“I have a sneaky feeling that it was something the hurricane washed up from the bottom of some murky creak bed or something,” he said.
Because the cells can regenerate, most victims fully recover from even the most severe cases of Guillain-Barre, according to the institute. George can walk again, but is still considered 100 percent disabled by the state.
Soon after returning from the hospital, his son, Glover, decided to get his father back in his home. In three weeks, George was out of the trailer and back in his home.
“I owe a whole lot to him,” George said. “I can’t say enough about how much my son gave me. He’s a godsend.”
George said his house is almost complete.
“Everything is just about finished except for my deck, and I don’t need that to live,” he said. “That’s small potatoes.”
George has been living in the Moss Point-Pascagoula area since 1964. If another storm like Katrina comes along, he’s gone.
“Aggravation is a euphemism for what I went through,” George said. “It was just horrible trying to get that house rebuilt. With no contractors around here, I couldn’t find good help. It just got me so frustrated.”
Until then, he’s excited about the future of his neighborhood.
“South of me, the whole neighborhood is just gone. It’s like a ghost town down there,” said George.
But when the people settle the old block, they will all have to live in brand new homes.
“I think it will come back better,” he said. “It’s like a blessing in disguise, but it sure did have on a disguise.”
Martha Chisholm’s home in Pascagoula is on a street with no neighbors.
Katrina devastated her stretch of street. The homes that weren’t completely toppled by the August 2005 storm where bulldozed by the city, including her own. The section of land comprised eight homes. Now it’s just hers and seven plots of tile-covered foundations.
Thanks to updated flood zoning codes, her new modular home is perched some 12 feet above the ground on concrete stilts.
With flat foundations fronting her high-rise house, she can see it well into her leisure walks around the neighborhood.
“I walk around the block all the time. I still can’t believe it,” Chisholm said. “It’s so sad. It just hits you; there’s nobody there.”
Chisholm, born in Compton, Calif., and reared in Ocean Springs, moved into her Pascagoula home 13 years ago.
Her husband died in 2003, so she lived alone when Katrina sprung from the Gulf.
She decided to stay with her son, Tommy, in Grand Bay, Ala., as the hurricane passed.
Like so many Pascagoula residents, basing their decisions on a 38-year-old Hurricane Camille precedent, Chisholm left most everything back home.
“I was hoping to come back and stay,” she said.
She didn’t think she would come back to a home ravaged by wind and water and condemned by the city, but that’s just what happened.
Like a car, her home was totaled. It would cost more to renovate than to simply tear it down and rebuild.
“It was horrible, just unreal,” she said. “I was in a daze. I couldn’t believe it.”
When the city offered to bulldoze it for free, she accepted. Just that quickly, she was back in Grand Bay, living with her son’s parents-in-law. She stayed there five months before she could purchase a trailer in January 2006.
“I was excited to get the trailer, but I got sick of it,” Chisholm said. “After a while you outgrow it ... I feel like I came unglued living in that trailer, but I did appreciate getting it.”
She moved into her modular home in May 2007.
Since then Chisholm has been able to decorate her home and replace what she could.
Many of her pictures were destroyed, and she’s having trouble tossing out a few ruined sentimental items she’s stubbornly holding on to.
She won’t make that mistake again. Chisholm will have her keepsakes in hand if the next storm turns her home’s stilts into crutches.
First he lost his home, then his ability to walk. Nearly three years later, he has them both back.
The morning before the storm, George was working his seasonal job at the Hickory Hill Golf Course in Gautier. He wasn’t too worried; the weather reports were saying Katrina was aimed straight at New Orleans.
A few hours later, now heading straight toward Mississippi, the storm had changed course. George didn’t have much time to do the same.
“I didn’t have time to get anything out but me, my dog and a couple changes of clothes,” he said.
He made quick plans to stay with his parents in Lucedale and raced back early the next day to gauge the damage.
The refrigerator was tipped over; the dryer was on top of the washing machine, not by design, and all of it was resting in two inches of “that stinking hurricane flood mud.”
“It was a total disaster,” George said. “It looked like the Jolly Green Giant had stuck his hand in and swirled everything around.”
George skipped around from his son’s home in Hattiesburg, a condo provided by the golf course and his parent’s home.
Meanwhile, he was trying to rebuild his broken home.
“All I had was studs, roof and slab. I had to build from there up,” he said.
First things first, George headed to the local Allstate office to get his insurance policy money.
The wind-water argument would not escape him.
He stepped into the office, and the receptionist dismissed him with the wave of a hand.
“That’s water damage,” she said.
A “heated discussion” ensued, George citing the fact that the company hadn’t even looked at his property damage. He stormed out after being told he wasn’t eligible for anything.
“It wasn’t an hour later that an Allstate rep from Houston, Texas, called me,” George said.
An agent was sent, and George was eventually awarded $9,000 of his claim.
He received his FEMA trailer in March 2006, parked it out front and soldiered on.
He went to bed one Wednesday night, awoke the next morning and fell straight to the floor while heading for the bathroom.
Overnight George had caved to Guillain-Barre syndrome, falling victim to its paralyzing symptoms.
Guillain-Barre is a disorder in which the immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system, tearing the sheathing off nerve cells, George said. In his most severe state, he was bedridden at the hospital for more than four months, paralyzed from his neck to his ankles.
Guillain-Barre usually occurs a few days or weeks after a person has had symptoms of a respiratory or gastrointestinal viral infection, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
George suspects the hurricane.
“I have a sneaky feeling that it was something the hurricane washed up from the bottom of some murky creak bed or something,” he said.
Because the cells can regenerate, most victims fully recover from even the most severe cases of Guillain-Barre, according to the institute. George can walk again, but is still considered 100 percent disabled by the state.
Soon after returning from the hospital, his son, Glover, decided to get his father back in his home. In three weeks, George was out of the trailer and back in his home.
“I owe a whole lot to him,” George said. “I can’t say enough about how much my son gave me. He’s a godsend.”
George said his house is almost complete.
“Everything is just about finished except for my deck, and I don’t need that to live,” he said. “That’s small potatoes.”
George has been living in the Moss Point-Pascagoula area since 1964. If another storm like Katrina comes along, he’s gone.
“Aggravation is a euphemism for what I went through,” George said. “It was just horrible trying to get that house rebuilt. With no contractors around here, I couldn’t find good help. It just got me so frustrated.”
Until then, he’s excited about the future of his neighborhood.
“South of me, the whole neighborhood is just gone. It’s like a ghost town down there,” said George.
But when the people settle the old block, they will all have to live in brand new homes.
“I think it will come back better,” he said. “It’s like a blessing in disguise, but it sure did have on a disguise.”
Martha Chisholm’s home in Pascagoula is on a street with no neighbors.
Katrina devastated her stretch of street. The homes that weren’t completely toppled by the August 2005 storm where bulldozed by the city, including her own. The section of land comprised eight homes. Now it’s just hers and seven plots of tile-covered foundations.
Thanks to updated flood zoning codes, her new modular home is perched some 12 feet above the ground on concrete stilts.
With flat foundations fronting her high-rise house, she can see it well into her leisure walks around the neighborhood.
“I walk around the block all the time. I still can’t believe it,” Chisholm said. “It’s so sad. It just hits you; there’s nobody there.”
Chisholm, born in Compton, Calif., and reared in Ocean Springs, moved into her Pascagoula home 13 years ago.
Her husband died in 2003, so she lived alone when Katrina sprung from the Gulf.
She decided to stay with her son, Tommy, in Grand Bay, Ala., as the hurricane passed.
Like so many Pascagoula residents, basing their decisions on a 38-year-old Hurricane Camille precedent, Chisholm left most everything back home.
“I was hoping to come back and stay,” she said.
She didn’t think she would come back to a home ravaged by wind and water and condemned by the city, but that’s just what happened.
Like a car, her home was totaled. It would cost more to renovate than to simply tear it down and rebuild.
“It was horrible, just unreal,” she said. “I was in a daze. I couldn’t believe it.”
When the city offered to bulldoze it for free, she accepted. Just that quickly, she was back in Grand Bay, living with her son’s parents-in-law. She stayed there five months before she could purchase a trailer in January 2006.
“I was excited to get the trailer, but I got sick of it,” Chisholm said. “After a while you outgrow it ... I feel like I came unglued living in that trailer, but I did appreciate getting it.”
She moved into her modular home in May 2007.
Since then Chisholm has been able to decorate her home and replace what she could.
Many of her pictures were destroyed, and she’s having trouble tossing out a few ruined sentimental items she’s stubbornly holding on to.
She won’t make that mistake again. Chisholm will have her keepsakes in hand if the next storm turns her home’s stilts into crutches.