Resilience rises out of hurricanes
The windows in the double-wide need curtains.
The second-hand sofas don’t match anything.
There is no need for high-speed Internet because there is no computer.
There are almost enough dishes and flatware for the six adults, two teens, one preteen and two toddlers to eat at the same time.
Yet, Norman Sevin, his wife, Katherine, and their band of mobile relatives couldn’t be more content as they settle into their new jobs at the casino and new home in Airway Heights. This week, they will buy a Christmas tree and celebrate the holiday Northwest style, with snow angels etched into the lawn and the weather outside frightful.
The Sevins and McCrorys are Louisianans who were double whammied during this past mother-of-all-hurricanes season. First, Katrina left their one-story house in Chalmette, La., unlivable. Less than three weeks later, they were living in a three-bedroom mobile home in Lake Charles, La., thanks to FEMA funding. Then they got slammed by Rita.
Both times the Sevins evacuated before the hurricanes hit. They have not been back to Chalmette or Lake Charles. They examine the damage to their three-bedroom home by looking at pictures.
“It’s the only way of closure,” Katherine Sevin said, shuffling through a handful of photos that don’t come close to showing the whole picture. “People have been sending them up here,” she said of the photos.
Norman, a 40-year-old manager of a strip club in the French Quarter, and Katherine, a 33-year-old former stripper turned stay-at-home mom, lost all their belongings. But like many victims, the Sevins expressed thanks because they still had their family.
They are living in a mobile home on a back road in Airway Heights that they found through a classified ad.
They traveled here squeezed into Norman’s 1992 Ford Explorer: four adults, five kids, ranging in age from 22 months to 17 years old, four cats and a dog. Katherine’s sister and her partner arrived later by bus from Louisiana.
The family’s decision to relocate here was almost as random as throwing a dart at a map.
Norman had a friend in Coeur d’Alene. The friend knew Norman had casino experience. The family had been thinking about moving to the Northwest at some time. The hurricane accelerated the plan and as Katherine explained, “we had nowhere to go.”
Before starting over, they experienced a week of angst locating loved ones. While the Sevins left the day before the eye of Katrina crossed over Chalmette, the McCrorys, who are Katherine’s brothers and sister, had no transportation out of town.
Billyray McCrory, 34, Quintin McCrory, 25, Laurelann McCrory, 29, and her partner Angela Nelson, 39, rode out the storm from their two-story apartment, one mile from Katherine’s house.
“We were having fun in the wind when the water came,” Billyray recounted. And it didn’t stop until it swallowed the first floor of their apartment, collapsing the ceiling. The only safe haven was the roof where he watched the streets flood and eventually turn into 2 ½ feet of mud.
For days, Katherine said she had no idea where her brothers and sister were or what condition her house was left in. Through determination (and restored cell phone service), the family reunited about a week after the storm when the Sevins picked up Katherine’s siblings at a shelter in Baton Rouge.
No sooner had they started to get comfortable in Lake Charles, when round two, Hurricane Rita, blasted in.
“We left everything there … dishes, sleeper couch,” Katherine said. “We all feel like we’ve been severely cursed.” Cursed, but undoubtedly more resilient than a Lake Pontchartrain levee.
Norman, Katherine and Billyray all applied for jobs at Northern Quest Casino the same day and all have been hired. Norman is a dealer. Katherine is a house cleaner on the 11 p.m.-to-7 a.m. shift. Billyray has been hired to set up for events.
They decided to move to Airway Heights, within a poker-chip’s throw of the casino, because of their limited transportation. Norman’s truck, running on a life-support system, is their only vehicle. Sister Laurelann, in town since Thanksgiving with her partner, has been taking in the sights by hopping a bus to Spokane.
The kids are experiencing snow for the first time, or for the oldest, her first time since diapers.
The McCrory siblings, Katherine explained, lived nomadic childhoods, before the family settled outside New Orleans. It was the only hometown four of her children have ever known.
“Starting over is nothing new to us. Sometimes we lived out of a car,” Katherine said, standing in her Airway Heights living room while activity bustled in every direction, “But I never wanted to see my children go through it,” Katherine said.
She said they’ll be making trips to New Orleans, for vacation, or maybe for Mardi Gras. But for now, this is home.