Pull of home strong for evacuees
New Orleans residents return to ravaged homes Culture of second-storey living emerges

Nov. 25, 2005. 01:00 AM
RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW ORLEANS—Almost five weeks after he swam out of his flooded house, pushing his parrot's cage on a floating tire, Dr. Joe Thompson decided he couldn't go another night away from home.
"That's it," he told himself. "I need to sleep in my own bed.''

Half his home had been destroyed, but like an optimist who sees the glass half full, the 42-year-old doctor focused on the half of his house left intact by Hurricane Katrina: High above the floodwater, the farmhouse's second storey, had survived the storm unscathed.

Even without electricity, gas or hot water, it's still "my home," Thompson said — and so he moved back in, joining the ranks of self-proclaimed "homesteaders," who are bravely resettling a new urban frontier: The second storeys of their hurricane-ravaged homes.

While 80 per cent of the city flooded when New Orleans' levees broke after Katrina hit on Aug. 29, many streets were submerged in a metre of water — enough to destroy a house's first floor, but not enough to harm the second.

In the city's middle-class neighbourhoods, where houses are often two- and three-storeys tall, a culture of second-storey living is quietly emerging. Tired of hotels and imposing on relatives, families are returning to their partially destroyed homes.

He uses a Coleman lantern from room to room to dispel the darkness. "But it's even worse being away.''

Around the city, second-floor dwellers are easy to spot when night falls. High above a pitch-black street, a candle flickers at the end of one block. A few streets away, the darkness is broken by the intermittent beam of a flashlight.

`A hot shower would be nice ... but I can't inconvenience my friends any more.'
Beth Danisavich, school teacher

"I'd like the convenience of electricity, cable TV. A hot shower would be nice, too. But I just can't inconvenience my friends any more," said Beth Danisavich, 38, a former school teacher, who was the first to return to her street, a few blocks from Thompson's house.

When dusk falls, she begins lighting the 20 candles in her living room, the 10 in her kitchen and the eight in her bedroom, including one in a heavy glass jar that bears the image of a winged angel. "I need all the guardian angels I can get," she said.

Functioning in the dark, using flashlights, lanterns and candles, is by far the biggest adjustment, say those who have returned. Besides the hassle, there's the issue of fear: Before she snuffs out her candles, Danisavich places a flashlight, as well as a large kitchen knife, underneath her pillow.
Then, there's the cooking.

Instead of toasted bagels for breakfast, Thompson, who uses a Coleman stove to heat his meals, switched to instant oatmeal, which requires him only to boil a pot of water — the same water he then uses to make coffee. Even in houses that have had electricity restored, cooking without a gas stove and a proper sink is a chore.

Terri Stuckey's kitchen was located on the ground floor and had to be ripped out. Now, she cooks on the barbecue outside. She uses the garden hose to clean her family's dishes, or else the bathroom sink upstairs. She combs the local grocery store for ready-to-eat ingredients — like pre-washed lettuce and packets of broccoli florets.

"It's a lot of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches," said Robin Albert, 31, whose entire first floor, including her kitchen, stewed in the fetid water for 13 days. She had to strip the entire ground floor, including the kitchen, to the beams.

But the pull of home is strong.

"Even if there's no electricity, or no running water, home is familiar. Home is where you want to be after a big trauma. And even though home is not what it used to be, it's still home," said Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, the chair of the urban planning department at the University of California, Los Angeles.

In Florida, following hurricanes Charley and Francis last year, residents of Polk and Osceola counties had to be removed from their homes after they tried to move back into the second floors of condemned structures.