Jaleela Baker, 14, waits for lunch at Colonial Beach High School, where she began classes two weeks ago. Her family was rescued from New Orleans by boat. REBECCA SELL/THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

The calm after the storm

Three Katrina families are rebuilding their lives locally

Date published: 10/2/2005

By MELISSA NIX

By MELISSA NIX

HEN HURRICANE KATRINA unleased its fury on the Gulf Coast, 550 people were counting on John Thorhauer.

It was Aug. 29, the Stafford County native's first day as director of an Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Miss. It overlooked the ocean, separated from the water by 300 feet.

He was hired to supervise 416 residents, 50 of whom required nursing care.

He would fear for his life--and the lives of the people in his care--long before lunchtime.

"There was a resident sitting in a wheelchair sitting in waist-deep water. I turned around as I was standing in the hallway with water up to my waist. All the furniture was floating."

And then he saw a wave crest and head toward him.

"I'll never forget that wave coming up behind us. It was strong enough to knock you over."

That's when Thorhauer got scared. And yet he managed to help everyone, including his family, survive.

John and Laura Thorhauer had been in Gulfport for only 14 days when Katrina hit--taking everything they owned with it.

On Tuesday, they spread out before-and-after pictures on a coffee table in their rented Fredericksburg apartment.

In the first picture, their modest Gulfport ranch home has reinforced storm windows and a neatly trimmed row of hedges.

In the next picture--post-Katrina--the hedges are still there, a bit battered. But their home is completely gone, vanished, except for a couple of stubs of concrete.

Now the North Stafford High School sweethearts are trying to put their lives back together here. Their daughter Kirsten, an eighth-grader, started at Gayle Middle School on Monday.

"We never thought we'd land back in Stafford," Laura said. "It took a hurricane to do it!"

They're trying to stay positive.

"You either sink or swim," Laura said. "We're optimists."

"We were going to have a little hurricane party," Laura said.

She and Kirsten joined John in the retirement home the night before Katrina hit Gulfport. Another 50 families--all relatives of the home's employees--also moved in to weather the storm.

"It was very routine," John added. "The Navy Seabees showed up to board up windows and get everyone prepared--just like they've done hundreds of times before."

The number of Katrina enrollees in area schools has nearly doubled since Sept. 12--from close to 50 displaced students to a new total of 96. Like Jaleela, the majority of the students are from Louisiana. Stafford County public schools continue to have the most Katrina enrollees--40 total. The system has added 18 students since Sept. 12. Although the number of students has slowed of late, "We were getting six, seven, eight students a day," said Lisa Von Dohlen, Stafford's coordinator of social-work services. Spotsylvania has the next-largest population of displaced students, with 27 children. King George County has enrolled 11 displaced students; Westmoreland County has three; Culpeper County has two; Colonial Beach has one--Jaleela. Orange County and the city of Fredericksburg have both doubled the number of Katrina enrollees in their schools--from three to six in each district. --Melissa Nix and Kelly Hannon

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Date published: 10/2/2005