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Hayes Family Weathers Storm’s Destruction with Continued Grace
Amanda Mark, Staff, Redcross.org
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 — BILOXI, Miss. — Hundreds of Mississippians gathered along the shores of the Gulf Coast this past Sunday to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Holding hands, they formed a line that they’d hope would stretch from Waveland, Miss. to past Biloxi, Miss. The proud residents talked of where they’d been a year before and how far they’d come.
Laura Lambert, Marie Hayes and Jane Smith join hands during the "hands across the coast" event near Biloxi, Miss. The two sisters and their mom weathered Katrina, but feel blessed that their family survived.
(Photo Credit: Gene Dailey/American Red Cross)
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They cried remembering the first sight of their homes after the storm—or what had been their homes. They reminisced about how pristine the beaches had been before Katrina. They shook their heads at how much their lives had changed in the past year.
Across the coast, residents held hands in silence for two minutes, clapped and headed back to their daily lives.
“I love Mississippi,” one woman said. “We’ll rebuild, and we’ll make it work.
Among the affected hurricane survivors gathered along the coast by Biloxi was the Hayes family—mother Marie Hayes and her daughters Laura Lambert and Jane Smith.
The Hayes family are longtime Mississippians who weathered many storms before Hurricane Katrina. They were accustomed to battening down the hatches and losing power for five days, but nothing prepared them for the strength and ferocity of Katrina. They weathered the storm in their own individual homes. The family home, where their mother still lives, is a mile or so from the coast while four of her children live in the surrounding area.
Smith and her husband live north of the I-10 highway—supposedly north of the flood planes and outside of harm’s way. After Katrina, she and her husband couldn’t live in their home for six months due to severe water damage.
Marie Hayes, Amanda Mark and Jane Smith take a moment to laugh during the "hands across the coast" event near Biloxi, Miss. Hundreds of Mississippians gathered for two minutes of silence on the eve of Katrina's one-year anniversary.
(Photo Credit: Gene Dailey/American Red Cross)
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Their mother’s home suffered damage and one sister’s home along Long Beach was leveled completely.
“We really realize how blessed we were,” said Smith. “We survived—our only loss was my sister’s home was leveled on the beach down by Long Beach.”
The family’s everyday lives bear the footprint of Katrina. As they gather everyday at their mother’s home, where she cooks lunch for her daughters, the conversation has a common thread.
“Every day it’s Katrina,” said Smith.
Lambert interjected with exasperation, “We say: ‘are we EVER going to go a day without saying the k-word’?”
“Katrina has changed us—we live with such anxiety,” Smith said. “We’ve lived our whole lives on the coast, and we know that if we get a good cold snap, the Gulf water will cool. This winter, every day my boss would come into the office and say: ‘what’s the weather?’ Every day it was warm—we had a warm winter. We just worried and worried that the gulf would never cool, and we’d have another Katrina.”
Seeing the Red Cross emblem on a photographer, the Hayes family became animated in their remembrance.
“Oh we appreciate everything you all do,” said Smith. “[Mississippians] need help when the storm hits and that’s when you all showed up.”
The family recalled their favorite Red Cross moment when they realized that the services offered expanded beyond water, ice and emergency food.
“We went up to my sister’s lawn—where her house was—by Long Beach. It was the four of us and we went every Sunday to go through her yard just trying to find anything,” said Smith.
“All of a sudden, we saw two ladies come out of nowhere,” Smith continued. “They came through the trees and climbed over some rubble. They were from the Red Cross. One of the ladies touched my sister’s shoulder and said: ‘was this your home?’ She wanted to know if we were okay, if we wanted to talk to anyone. I was flabbergasted that someone was there just to check in on us and make sure we were okay.”
After weathering Katrina, the Hayes family plans to now volunteer for the next disaster.
“We all will take a week off of work and drive to where help is needed,” said Smith. “We were so touched by the kindness of strangers.”
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