Teacher Claudette Hunter welcomes Leondra Batiste during an open house at St. Rita's Catholic School in New Orleans. The 9-year-old, who lived in North Stafford after Katrina hit, is glad to be back with her friends. MIKE MORONES/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Tonda and Leon Batiste, who stayed in Stafford after Katrina, check progress on their New Orleans home. MIKE MORONES/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Slowly, families with ties to the Fredericksburg area rebuild houses--and lives--two years after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast

Date published: 8/28/2007

By RUSTY DENNEN

NEW ORLEANS--Leondra Batiste is a little girl with a big smile.

One day last week, she was dressed up in her crisp white and blue school uniform to meet her fourth-grade teacher at St. Rita, a Catholic school in a working-class neighborhood not far from downtown.

"I have eight friends here!" she beamed, her mom and dad, Leon and Tonda Batiste, in tow.

She had good reason to be happy.

Leondra, 9, is one of the children of the storm, one of the tens of thousands whose lives were wrenched loose from their very foundations by Hurricane Katrina. It's been two years tomorrow since the monster hurricane wrecked the Gulf Coast.

For the first time since the storm struck. Leondra has felt a blessed state of normalcy.

Up to now, life has been a whirlwind of heartache and change. That journey brought them from a hopeful life in Louisiana's Crescent City, to hard times a thousand miles away from home in Stafford County. They finally got back home for good last month.

For now, the family is living in a rental a few blocks away from the home on Forshey Street that the couple bought in 1995 just before they got married.

Like the Batistes themselves, the small, trim rambler that had filled with putrid black water when a nearby levee broke is on the mend.

Their contractor, Mark Harris worked inside with a two-man crew last week, nailing up drywall. Plywood covers a floor once twisted and warped. Insulation is in the walls. Plumbing and electrical work has been completed; appliances will go in soon, and the house will be painted. In 45 days, Harris says, they should be able to move in.

"It's coming along, slowly but surely," Leon Batiste says, surveying the day's progress. He's done some of the work himself, even though he's disabled by a back injury and high blood pressure.

He comes by several times a day to check to make sure that no one has stolen anything from the house. Thieves often steal construction supplies, appliances, even copper plumbing pipe. That's one of the sad realities in a ruined city that is slowly rebuilding.

But with each passing day, the close-knit neighborhood is being reborn.

Staff writer Rusty Dennen and photographer Mike Morones visit the Gulf Coast on the two-year anniversary of the storm. TOMORROW Operation Photo Rescue works to salvage precious memories in pictures.

Date published: 8/28/2007