Wanting For Peace, Joy

By LINDSAY PETERSON lpeterson@tampatrib.com

Published: Dec 25, 2005

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is part of an occasional series following four families uprooted by Hurricane Katrina who are trying to build new lives in the Tampa Bay area.

TAMPA - When her airplane touched down in Tampa, Nicole Fontenot thought her long, hideous ordeal in New Orleans was finally over.

She had spent most of six days and nights in a downtown hotel, exhausted, unwashed, unable to reach her mother and children in the Superdome less than a mile away.

That first night here, Nicole, 36, lay in bed in her aunt's home, safe and scrubbed but sleepless, still feeling the filth on her skin.

She sees now that although coming to Tampa marked the end of one ordeal, it may have been the start of another, more personal, struggle. She hasn't lost her faith, she said. But she can't stop wondering why God would let so many blameless people suffer after Hurricane Katrina.

She craves peace of mind this Christmas. It's coming, slowly, in her children's achievements and private revelations about how Katrina changed her. And for the day, she's surrounded by loved ones from out of town who have gathered at her aunt's house.

It's hard, she said recently, not to think about all they've lost, the traditions that tied people together, the annual house-to-house trek, for instance, to sample friends' fried turkey, filet gumbo and other specialties.

"Sometimes I think this is a trial time for me," she said. "I think it's a test of my faith."

She had worries in New Orleans, too. She was raising two children, Dymond Fontenot and Troy Taylor, now 10 and 14, and paying a mortgage with her earnings from the New Orleans Police Department, where she gathered crime scene evidence.

Her fiancé, Craig Ordogne, helped with jobs as a cook and construction worker. When she felt overwhelmed, she retreated to a spot in City Park, along Bayou St. John, where she could sit quietly and pray. She called it her "secret closet."

Then came Katrina.

After The Storm

Nicole spent the aftermath of the storm on police duty in a downtown hotel while her mother, children and fiancé waited in the sweltering Superdome. They wouldn't leave the city before the storm because they didn't want to leave Nicole behind.

She watched the water pour into the business district that Tuesday, Aug. 30, then braved the filthy brew to get to her family the next day, able to stay only a few minutes because she was on duty.

Restless with anxiety for the next three days, she waited for word they had been evacuated. Just when she thought they were safely on their way to Texas, she heard her mother and children had been separated in the jostling crowds boarding the buses.

Finally, by Labor Day, Sept. 5, they were safe and together at the home of Nicole's aunt, Mary Stevenson, in Riverview.

Ten days later, Nicole sat curled on her aunt's couch in an oversize T-shirt that read "How About Never." "All I wanted was a bath when I got here, but I still don't feel clean," she said.

The children barely spoke. Troy looked away, snapping his fingers to a song that no one else heard, as his grandmother described the conditions in the Superdome.

"I don't want to go back," Troy said.

"We really don't know what our future is," his mother said.

Nicole's children were happy in their new schools at least. On Dymond's first day at Boyette Springs Elementary, a group of students met her to walk her to their fifth-grade classroom.

But Nicole worried about Troy, she said later. At the Superdome, he had seen a man leap from the stands and die. He would say little more, except that he was fine and wanted to make the Riverview High School basketball team.

"That's all he does is bounce that basketball," she said. "He spends every minute outside by himself with that basketball. That's all he wants to do."

The third week of September, Nicole's mother, Evelyn Williams, returned to New Orleans, hired back by her previous employer, the local telephone company.

She visited her home as soon as she could and found it had been spared serious damage. Then she saw Nicole's. Floodwaters had risen at least three feet inside. Door frames were warped. Furniture was scattered, as if the pieces had been floating. The grass looked like it had been burned.

Discovering What's Lost

Back in Florida, the loss was beginning to sink in.

"I had that lawn going this year. I used to keep it cut, keep it nice," said Nicole's fiancé, Craig. "I loved cutting the grass and then sitting down with a cold beer and just looking outside."

While he pushed the mower, Dymond would search for snails and turtles, Nicole said.

Then Craig might go down the street for a roast beef sandwich, the kind with lots of brown gravy on that New Orleans bread with the crunchy crust. "The bread soaks up the gravy, and it's so messy, you just gotta keep wiping your mouth," he said.

Nicole said she lost something she can't describe. "It's that feeling of home, that place where you can just relax and say, 'I'm here.'" She also lost her quiet place, her "secret closet."

"I'm trying to figure out what to do now, what I have to do next, and I just get a headache," she said.

She spent hours on the phone with her homeowners and flood insurance companies and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, trying to find out how to file her claims. She also continued to worry about Troy as he waited for basketball tryouts.

The day in late September before Hurricane Rita hit Texas and Louisiana, Nicole's head pounded so hard, she could barely get out of bed.

She longed for time to stand still, just enough to give her a moment of peace, but the days, and demands, kept coming. She had to keep calling her insurance companies and FEMA. She had to keep up the house and keep a strong facade for her children.

She prayed every morning, often letting her Bible fall open to a random verse, hoping it would offer inspiration, anything to help her find meaning in the Gulf Coast's destruction.

As the days passed, Craig found a good job at a paint company in Brandon. Dymond joined the school chorus. Troy tried out for basketball - and made the team.

But the blues still weighed on Nicole. At any given time, for no apparent reason, she would begin to cry. "I don't know. I just cry over nothing. I don't know what's wrong with me," she said.

In mid-November, she finally saw her damaged house and devastated community when she and Craig flew to New Orleans to pick up her car, unscathed by the storm.

It was a shock, Nicole said. But they returned to Florida with one problem solved. They knew they had to make their home here, at least for the next year, maybe permanently.

"All the life is gone there," Craig said.

"It's hard to imagine going back," Nicole said.

A Different Place

Soon after, Nicole started working at Ashley Furniture Industries' new call center, north of Brandon. Then she and Craig began hunting for a house in the Riverview area. Nicole said her aunt has been more than generous, but they're ready to start building lives of their own.

For Christmas she bought clothes for Troy and Barbie accessories for Dymond. But what she wants to provide more than anything is a home, she said. That, she hopes, will bring her some peace. She's working about 12 hours a day to save money for the payments.

Staying busy keeps her sadness at bay, although it can be draining listening to people's complaints all day long. "Before I can finish with one call, I've got another one coming in," she said.

But as she listens, and she does a lot of listening, she thinks about what she and her family have been through these past four months. Watching their city come apart, living for days without regular meals, a bed, clean clothes, losing everything and trying to adjust to a new place that feels nothing like home.

The other night, Nicole said, a woman called to complain that she hadn't received all of a bedroom suite order. The caller was furious. Without the missing pieces, she couldn't put her bed together, she said, and she demanded to know where she was going to sleep that night.

"I just got quiet," Nicole said. "I just held the phone, and she just kept on. It's like I was in a zone." Finally, fighting tears, she was able to pass the call to a supervisor.

Then she started thinking.

Before Katrina, she might have had the same attitude as that woman. "I needed my bed at night," she said. But the world is a different place to her now. "If I was somewhere and I had to sleep on the floor, I'd say 'no problem.'"

Losing everything helped her see what is important, she said.

"It changes you."

Reporter Lindsay Peterson can be reached at (813) 259-7834. Keyword: On The Road, for more stories from this series and a photo gallery.