Friday, August 31, 2007

Recovering from Katrina

Here's a story that ran recently in a New Orleans paper, about my brother and SIL -- I might have mentioned them a few times. They got flooded out in Katrina and spent nearly two years in a FEMA trailer, while my SIL, basically on her own, with help from my brother on the weekends, and the rest of my family too, of course, when they could, rebuilt the house. They moved back into the house this past July.

The article makes them sound all peppy and can-do, which they are, mind you. But it downplays what they went through, the nearly two years of living in a trailer the size of my office at school (I have a very small office) and being jerked around by FEMA and the Road Home people until they were driven to tears and the heat and the misery and having to live with relatives for months on end...

Anyway, still, they're great survivors, Ben and Marlis, and I'm deeply impressed with what they've done.

And the house? Amazing.

2 comments:

Diane said...

I read that story. That's your brother and sister-in-law?! Wow.

delagar said...

Yep! Marlis is so cool. She doesn't even know she's doing anything remarkable. I love the "it's just nails and boards" quotation, b/c that's Marlis exactly. Like just anyone could look at a wall and figure out how to build it!