Louisiana member says it will take six months to rebuild his house

School custodian and longtime St. Tammany Parish, La., resident Jerome Troullier, along with his wife, son, daughter and grandson, headed to a relative’s house in a safer, drier part of the state to ride out Hurricane Katrina.

When Troullier returned four days later, he found his house—a doublewide mobile home—still standing but ravaged by flooding. There was damage to the walls and floors, and nearly all furniture, appliances and clothes were ruined—a lifetime’s collection. Troullier expects the house to be uninhabitable for nearly six months, and estimates damages to approach $40,000. Some FEMA and private insurance money is trickling in to cover these costs, but the payments won’t come close to reimbursing Troullier for his losses.

Restoring his home to a livable condition is going to be a long, slow process, Troullier realizes. His first major struggle was to clear his house of ruined possessions, a task that was especially hard on his back and knees, he says.

At the same time, Troullier knows that he was lucky. He still has his job and hasn’t missed a paycheck. His school, Honey Island Elementary, reopened on Oct. 3 and Troullier, an active member of the St. Tammany Federation of Teachers and School Employees, is back at work. With the house uninhabitable, he and his wife are staying at a nearby motel; his son, daughter and grandson are still with relatives.

Troullier is resolute in the face of the monumental challenges that lie ahead. “It’s basically the same thing every day right now—wake up early, go to work, finish work, go do some repairs on the house, return to the motel late at night and fall asleep. It’s tiring, but it’s what I have to do so my family can come back home.”

Mississippi member finds some precious memories—but little else

It’s like a treasure hunt—you keep going back, looking for more,” says AFT member Marla Mauffray of post-Hurricane Katrina expeditions to her Long Beach, Miss., beachfront neighborhood.

Two crystal crosses are among the few relics Mauffray, a fourth-grade teacher at Thomas L. Reeves Elementary School and a member of the Long Beach Federation of Teachers, has recovered from her home—her neighborhood, actually. “Our stuff is not even on our property,” she says. “It’s to the north, the east, the west—and probably the south.”

Like many coastal homes along the Gulf, Mauffray’s house was reduced to a slab of concrete by Hurricane Katrina’s winds, which seemed to devour most of the family’s belongings. Only some dishes, a couple pieces of jewelry and those treasured crosses from her daughters’ baptisms were found nearby.

Although her family—husband Bobby and daughters Emma, 4, and Ryann, 2—have lost their house and nearly all their possessions, they have a roof over their heads. She and her family are living with her mother and stepfather, whose home was not in the path of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction. Mauffray went back to work at Reeves in late September (students returned Oct. 3).

“Knowing that I can never go back to that house” is difficult, she says.  “We brought both of our children home from the hospital to that house.”