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| At Home in the Bay
“I haven’t been here in a while,” comments Miranda Rutherford softly as she walks among the splintered pillars of her old house.
Like many others in the Riverside development of Bay St. Louis, all that remains of her family’s home are pillars jutting from a concrete slab, overgrown with wild shrubs and weeds.
“My bedroom used to be right . . .” Her voice trails off as she conjures up a visual memory of the home that was, and slowly overlays that memory onto this twisted frame. “Right here,” she announces and waltzes over to the front left corner. “My room was right here!” |
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| She and her mother and siblings, along with other relatives and friends evacuated to Tennessee in advance of Katrina. Her father remained behind and rode out the storm in a friend’s house. They had no idea when they left that they would never see their home or their belongings again.
“I couldn’t believe it. Our house was wiped clean. There was literally nothing left. Nothing!” she exclaimed. And then she remembered a jar of pickles she found half submerged in black mud underneath what used to be the kitchen. “I remember thinking how odd it was to find it, without a scratch.” The jar’s survival is a testament to the random power of Katrina; a power that violently wrenched a storm fortified house right off of its hurricane strapping and mockingly left in its place a fragile, glass jar. |
In an all-too-common story in the Gulf Coast, the Rutherford’s insurance settlement wasn’t large enough to cover the cost of rebuilding. To make matters worse, their wind insurance rate skyrocketed after the storm, making it impossible to afford to live in that area. Four years later, the silent, empty lot remains frozen in time, awaiting some future moment when the family can either sell it for a reasonable price or afford to build on it. For now, both futures seem distant and remote.
While her family returned and began life in a different house, Miranda decided to stay in Tennessee. A recent high school graduate, she figured there weren’t many opportunities for her back in the Bay. But she deeply missed her family and friends, so in 2006 when her father needed her help to recover from heart surgery, she was ready to return.
Back in the Bay, she developed a new resolve to take control of her life. She rented an apartment and got a job at Walmart. She plans to start at the Community College in the fall, and to complete a degree in marketing at the University of Southern Mississippi. “Some of my friends are already married and have two or three kids, but no house,” she says. “I don’t want that. I want to do everything in the right order. A house comes first.”
Thanks to Habitat for Humanity, Miranda will be able to do things in the right order. A decent, affordable house provides the foundation from which she’ll build a home, a life, and a future. “It took me a while to decide to stay in the Bay. But now I know, I’m here to stay. Thank-you!” |
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