Katrina's ground zero: 3 months later
WAVELAND, Miss. - She already had scoured the stand of twisted and broken pine trees near her house many times, so to stumble on a new treasure lit Peggy Parker's face with pure joy.
"Babe, look what I found!" she called to her fiance. Clutched to her chest was a mud-encrusted figurine of three festive owls she bought 25 years ago - a worthless piece of kitsch, but beyond value to Parker. "I feel like I won a million dollars."
Every day the hunt for pieces of her splintered life motivates Parker to climb out of bed in the cramped FEMA travel trailer in Biloxi she now calls home and make another foray into her beloved city of Waveland, ground zero for Hurricane Katrina as it savaged the Gulf Coast three months ago.
At 54, this divorced mother of one, grandmother of two, is among the hundreds of Waveland's residents returning home to scavenge for the fragments of their past in hopes of laying the foundations for their future.
In just 12 hours, Katrina washed away Parker's two-bedroom house, her job, her way of life. Almost everyone she loves is uprooted, cast to the winds of uncertainty. Her mother, her son, her brother, her uncle, her cousin all lost their homes, too.
It's no wonder her good nature fades to anger when, after weeks of trying to reach her insurance company, she finally hears a sympathetic voice at the other end of her cell phone.
"I know how you feel," the woman tells her.
Parker explodes.
More...
"Babe, look what I found!" she called to her fiance. Clutched to her chest was a mud-encrusted figurine of three festive owls she bought 25 years ago - a worthless piece of kitsch, but beyond value to Parker. "I feel like I won a million dollars."
Every day the hunt for pieces of her splintered life motivates Parker to climb out of bed in the cramped FEMA travel trailer in Biloxi she now calls home and make another foray into her beloved city of Waveland, ground zero for Hurricane Katrina as it savaged the Gulf Coast three months ago.
At 54, this divorced mother of one, grandmother of two, is among the hundreds of Waveland's residents returning home to scavenge for the fragments of their past in hopes of laying the foundations for their future.
In just 12 hours, Katrina washed away Parker's two-bedroom house, her job, her way of life. Almost everyone she loves is uprooted, cast to the winds of uncertainty. Her mother, her son, her brother, her uncle, her cousin all lost their homes, too.
It's no wonder her good nature fades to anger when, after weeks of trying to reach her insurance company, she finally hears a sympathetic voice at the other end of her cell phone.
"I know how you feel," the woman tells her.
Parker explodes.
More...
posted by Kent at 1:57 PM
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