GULF BREEZE, Fla. -- Hurricane Katrina wasn't as big a problem for me because I had nothing left for her to take. Katrina was salt in an existing wound, a stinging reminder that Mother Nature does as she pleases when she pleases. Katrina made worse a previous catastrophe: I lost my home 10 months prior to Katrina to her older brother, Hurricane Ivan.
Ivan roared ashore at the Florida-Alabama border on Oct. 16, 2004, devastating southwest Alabama and northwest Florida. Weathermen across the country touted Ivan as "The Storm of the Century." My neighborhood on Bay Street in Gulf Breeze, a bedroom community of Pensacola, was proof. Ivan destroyed my picturesque waterfront neighborhood. Of 20 homes in our canal community, three survived. Had Katrina never debuted, Ivan would still be the celebrity. But the runner-up is rarely remembered.
Before Katrina took aim, the remains of our home -- a single-story, three-bedroom, two-bathroom ranch house -- were bulldozed. We'd salvaged and rebuilt the garage from the old house to store building materials for the new home. Excited about rebuilding our community, my husband and I dove in to designing our dream home. We signed on the dotted line and committed most of our insurance settlement to rebuilding. (Sixty-five percent of our rebuilding costs were covered by insurance; the rest came out of our pockets.)
Like most of our neighbors, we'd spent 10 months living in a tin can, our 29-foot RV, when Katrina arrived. Under mandatory evacuation, we packed up our home, the RV and headed to high ground in Georgia. Nearly 300 miles away in Pine Mountain, Ga., we hid out in the RV from Katrina's tornadoes. Katrina spawned 43 tornadoes, and 21 were reported in Georgia.
Meanwhile, back in northwest Florida, kicking us while we were down, Katrina flooded our garage and vacant lot with a six-foot storm surge. There was nothing left for her to steal from us, except our enthusiasm for re-building.
Unable to back out of our rebuilding commitment, we carried on. Friends and family across the country thought we'd lost our mind, but leaving Gulf Breeze wasn't an option. Believing that Ivan had been the Storm of the Century, we'd placed all our money into rebuilding. We couldn't walk away. We couldn't sustain the loss. We were locked in.
Desperate to do the right thing, we turned to Manson and Laura Peppers, owners of Blue Ridge Cedar Homes in Dawsonville, Ga. They helped us design a Lindal Cedar Home, engineered to exceed all of Florida's stringent hurricane codes. We elevated the home 18 feet on premium pilings with hopes that we'd never see water in our home. We were determined to build our dream home.
Katrina's second kick came months later when she robbed us of construction crews, tradesmen and building supplies. Union pay scales in New Orleans lured our workers away. Special legislation for Katrina victims gave them tax breaks unavailable to hurricane victims in the 2004 or early 2005 season.
With most of the construction crews and tradesmen moving to the more lucrative work in the New Orleans area, it looked as if our home would never be built until Adam Drop of Global Construction in Atlanta saved the day. He brought a crew of craftsmen with him, many working on one year work visas from Poland, and our home was on its way. We grew to love our construction crew, and we even learned a few Polish words.
I look back on the time fondly, but at times it was hell. As a professional motivational speaker, I'd pack my bag, leave my tin can home, and head to another part of the country to motivate and inspire an audience. I'd return home to learn that the plumber had disappeared in the night with our money and our plumbing supplies. The air-conditioning kid was never seen again and neither was our money. The building inspector wanted us to redo a week's worth of work. I cried with a neighbor as she told us about her crook of a general contractor who absconded with more than $100,000.
I was a depressed motivational speaker.
We felt deep compassion for Katrina's victims because we knew what was ahead of them; the worst was yet to come. The storm is nothing compared to the battle for an insurance settlement or fighting off con-artist contractors. The loss of community and neighbors spirals many into the depths of despair. Financial concerns bewilder the best. Stress levels rise, heart attacks increase, marriages dissolve and families fall apart.
We survived. Despite it all, two years and three months after Ivan's wrath and Katrina's kicks, we moved into our dream home. Most of our neighborhood is still vacant lots. The 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons took their toll on the Gulf Coast. The BP oil spill was more salt on the wound. Yet, still, we love it in Gulf Breeze. We're living happily ever after in paradise, although we keep a wary eye on the tropical report.
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