Families Leave Hurricane Area For Trenton

Sep 7, 2005 | Headline News

Winola and Leonard Wood know they were among the lucky ones.

The Bay Saint Louis, MS, couple had a plan after Hurricane Ivan swept through the area earlier this year. So when Hurricane Katrina decided to make its way there early the morning of Aug. 29, the Woods family was already miles away.

Mr. and Mrs. Wood, along with their grandchildren, Austin Swofford and Fallon Hutchison, traveled north to Arkansas, spending the night in Blythedale before heading on to Missouri, where two of their children reside. The four ended up in Trenton at the home of their daughter, Jennifer Trickel.

But the journey to Missouri wasn’t easy, especially in the beginning when the family wasn’t sure just how serious the storm was going to be.

“We first noticed the storm before it hit in Miami,” Leonard said. “It started like a tropical depression, but by the time it got to Florida it was a Category 1 and had a name. But it wasn’t until it got to the Gulf of Mexico and was a Category 2 that we really started to watch it.”

For two days the couple watched the news and saw the storm travel toward the New Orleans area. Located just 45 miles east of there, Mr. and Mrs. Wood knew that Bay Saint Louis would at least get some of the brunt of the storm as it moved their way.

“We had a plan,” Mrs. Wood said. “We had already decided, after Hurricane Ivan, that we would make a reservation in Blythedale and stay there until the storm passed through.”

And as the storm turned into a Category 3, the couple knew they had to put their plan in motion.

“We calculated that the storm would hit on Monday night, so we decided we would leave early Monday,” Leonard said.

The couple began packing their belongings, along with those of their grandchildren, as well as picking up staples such as water, food and a few other necessities that they believed would be enough to get them through.

“We were preparing to go, tying the house down, covering up furniture with plastic,” Leonard said.

Early Sunday morning the telephone rang. A co-worker was on the other end and was telling Mrs. Wood that the storm had been upgraded to a Category 5 and that it was time to get out – now.

“By 3 p.m. we were in the van and on the way,” she said. “We loaded up the four puppies we had in a kennel; the grandchildren packed two small suitcases with some clothes; we picked up some dog food and a small TV for the kids and we were gone.”

And the traffic on Sunday afternoon was anything but normal. The family found themselves having to travel on Highway 10 before turning north on Highway 59 and continuing the journey.

“But we couldn’t get any farther,” Mrs. Wood said. “There was lots and lots of traffic. We traveled about 20 minutes down the road to Picayune. The destination at that point was Hattiesburg, a trip that at one point took two hours to drive 10 miles.

“The traffic was so heavy,” Mrs. Wood said. “We found out later they were putting the contraflow (those traveling one way on the main road) into the regular traffic, which was slowing everything down.”

But by that time the weather was getting worse and all the Wood family could do was continue onward.

“By the time we got to our room in Arkansas, we could see the storm starting to come in,” Mrs. Wood said. “When we got up the next day (Monday), we saw the television and what was going on, so we decided just to head north to Missouri.”

Up until that point, the family had been able to remain in contact with others in the area and had been talking with their daughter. She had evacuated to Alabama so that she could come back to assist with the clean-up of the casino where she works after the storm subsided.

It would be days after the storm before the Wood family would be able to establish contact with anyone from the area. The first was a phone call on Friday night from one of Mrs. Wood’s co-workers. She and her family were fine, but had no home. A call from a woman in Florida on Saturday was made on behalf of another co-worker who had stayed in Bay Saint Louis. That call was not as pleasant.

“We found out our home had moved a mile away and was filled with water,” Mrs. Wood said. “She told us not to come back.”

The office building in which Mrs. Wood works is also gone and the local hospital also had to be evacuated. Pretty much everything is gone or in shambles.

“People on the coast always talk about the ‘big one’,” Leonard said. “We thought Camille (in 1969) was the big one with 22-foot storm surges. Katrina had storm surges of over 30 feet. Homes that survived Camille did not survive Katrina.”

Mr. and Mrs. Wood did get a report about their daughter’s home. While it looked fine from the outside, the inside was another story.

“They said it just looked like it had been shaken inside,” Mrs. Wood said. “There was mud up six feet on the walls and the ceiling had fallen in. A wrought iron bed and mattress in the bedroom looked like it had been wrung out. There was nothing to salvage.”

The individuals who looked at their daughter’s home were unable to get to the Wood home, so the family can only guess its condition.

“We built it so water wouldn’t get in the house,” Leonard said. “We’ve been told the house is now under (water).”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Wood agree that it’s still seems unreal that such a storm could have hit and caused the destruction that it did.

“It still very surreal,” Leonard said. “It’s like telling a story you would see on TV. It just doesn’t seem real.”

The family knows that it will be months, may even years, before they can return to the area. But that is just what they plan to do.

“We like it there, we want to rebuild,” Leonard said.

Meanwhile, the family plans to stay in Missouri, eventually putting down roots in the Fayette-Boonville area, where their son lives. Mrs. Wood is a nurse and feels her job opportunities would be best there.

But there is still plenty to do in dealing with the aftermath of their lives in Mississippi. There is still contact to be made with the insurance company They have already visited with FEMA and will need to make contact with them again.

“One of the things we did do before we left was to put together a packet of our important papers, like our insurance papers, FEMA contact numbers,” Mrs. Wood said. “It was something I saw suggested on TV and I’m so glad I did that.”

The Woods were very complimentary of the help they have already received, especially from Red Cross and Division of Family Services officials, who helped secure medicine for their granddaughter, who needed to have a prescription filled.

“The president told the agencies to cut all the red tape and that has certainly been a help to us,” Leonard said, adding that he feels the criticism the government has taken over providing help has been unjustified.

“You have to realize, it’s 1 1/2 million people they’ve had to deal with,” he said. “They let the state and local agencies take care of it initially, which is how it should work, then came in when they (the state and local government) said they needed help. We should stay out of their way and let them do what they need to do.”

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Lori Traylor and her family listened when Louisiana officials said to evacuate the area.

Mrs. Traylor’s place of residence, Mandeville, LA, is located just north of New Orleans in Jefferson Parrish, where her husband, Jimmy, is a sergeant with the sheriff’s office there. While the family wasn’t real sure how much effect the storm might have on their community, when it was time to go, they went.

“Originally we were under the impression that the hurricane would go more toward Florida,” Mrs. Traylor said. “But by Saturday they started evacuating the area and that’s when we decided to come this way.”

Mrs. Traylor and her husband packed three outfits for the children, a few clothes for herself and some family photos. With the dog in tow, Mrs. Traylor and her children, Bradley, age 7, and Nicholas, age 3, headed to a Macomb, MS motel with her in-laws.

“Once we got there, we figured we be there to wait out the storm,” Mrs. Traylor said. Macomb is about one and one-half hour north of Mandeville.

When the storm hit on Monday, the motel lost all power and communication was lost.

“And once we realized how bad it was, we knew we weren’t going to be able to go back for awhile.” she said.

She was able to talk with her husband, who told her about the damage and encouraged her and the boys to continue to Trenton and to the home of her mother, Janet Elder.

“We couldn’t stay without electricity, so we decided to go ahead and drive.”

The trip was 900 miles and 16 hours, with the trio arriving in Trenton on Wednesday.

Her husband stayed in New Orleans to help with the rescue and recovery efforts. He was injured on the first day, falling and cutting the back of his head. But he has yet to let that injury keep him from his duties.

“He just had them put some staples in his head and he went right back to work,” Mrs. Traylor said. “He pretty much has been working 24/7, getting a few hours sleep here and there.”

Mrs. Traylor’s husband has told her that their home is still intact, however, it does have two trees on top of it.

“My neighbors weren’t so lucky,” she said. “Three of the houses were totaled, including my sister-in-law’s.”

Because of the debris and the need for extensive cleanup of the area, Mrs. Traylor is unsure as to when she might return to the area, a place she has called home for 16 years.

“I’ve never been through a hurricane and never seen anything like this,” she said, adding that she continues to watch updates on the television. “It’s just so hard to imagine. You see all these places you recognized on television and now their under water or just aren’t there. It just doesn’t seem real.”

Because they had very little time to leave the area, the family brought with them very little in the way of personal items. Mrs. Traylor said that local residents have been very kind in providing things such as clothes and toys for the boys.

“Betty Cox was very helpful in seeing that we were able to get clothing while we were here,” Mrs. Traylor said. “Mrs Cox had delivered meals here to my mother and had mentioned something about New Orleans. When my mother told her about me and the boys, that’s when she got us to the thrift shop. And the ladies there were just so nice. I told her the ages and sizes of the boys and they just took right over and got us what we needed.”

One of the boys even became the recipient of a bicycle provided by Charles and Bernice Elliott.

“I never expected this,” she said. “It’s been very touching.”

By Diane Raynes