Family recalls fleeing the storm, settling down in Maumelle

RIVER VALLEY and OZARK AREA — Five years ago today, a nightmare assaulted New Orleans and the Gulf coastal areas, claiming the lives of 1,836 and more than $80 billion worth of property. Donald and Jo Ann Bersuder, along with their family, were some of the

lucky ones who got away before Hurricane Katrina hit.

They escaped with Jo Ann’s mother, their daughter, son-in-law

and three grandchildren. In-laws fled the storm with them but

returned to New Orleans later.

For a while, they all lived under the same roof.

“It was horrendous,” Jo Ann said of the devastation that followed

their departure. Because of her cautious nature, they were not mired

in the miles of traffic jams that plagued many of the estimated 90

to 92 percent of the 1.3 million residents who successfully evacu

ated the area.

“The storm hit around 10:30 Monday morning,” she said, “but

it took us only eight hours to drive to Memphis on Saturday,

even though there was quite a bit of activity on the interstate.

We left at 3 p.m.”

In the beginning, the Bersuders, whose home was in New Orleans East parish, reacted to news of the impending storm much as their neighbors.

“We really didn’t believe it,” Jo Ann said.

Unlike their friends, however, the couple prepared to flee. They had, after all, evacuated five out of the prior seven years to Natchez, Miss., Florida or Houston. This year, they chose Memphis.

“We were cautious,” Donald said. “We wanted to get away from the coastal areas.”

Ever since Hurricane Betsy in 1965, when she and her mother were separated, Jo Ann swore to never evacuate without the entire family in tow.

“Back then, they didn’t even give people notice. I think the warnings became sterner after Betsy.”

“Hurricane Betsy was a dress rehearsal for me on what things to do and what things not to do,” Donald said. “My mother’s house was a pier house, and we had water up to my nose. Evacuating together is the only way - and leaving early.”

Jo Ann doesn’t know what possessed her to elevate her customary preparations to a whole other dimension.

“I know we jumped the gun even earlier that usual, even though the weatherman was wishy-washy,” she said. “I believe divine intervention influenced me to pack more clothes than normal, plus I packed a huge suitcase full of our important papers, such as income tax returns, rental property information, receipts for everything, insurance papers, even ourmarriage license,” she said, in a soft whisper underscoring her continued amazement. “I’d never done any of that before.”

Nothing prepared them for what the television blared into their hotel room.

“Not knowing what had happened to our home and our property and our friends; it was truly unbearable,” Jo Ann said, gently. “At least we had each other.”

Soon, daughter and sonin-law Lisa and Charlie Carrone and their three children, Brittany, Samantha and Colin, decided to leave Memphis and head to Little Rock, where Lisa’s father, Jo Ann’s ex-husband, lives.

“She felt the storm would be massive, and they might as well make a vacation out of it,” Jo Ann said, “so she made hotel reservations for the rest of us.”

Kindness surrounded them during those uncertain days.

“The Holy Souls parish was so important to us,” Jo Ann said. “We didn’t know anything about FEMA or the Red Cross, so my ex-husband found a completely furnishedhouse in the Heights, and we lived there a month. The people who owned it wouldn’t accept one penny for it.”

After living in the house, the Bersuders and her mother, Antonina Trentacoste, moved into a Hilton for the following month, then an apartment in west Little Rock for five months. A new stress was borne of the temporary dwellings.

“We had lived in a custom-built 1,800-square-foot home before,” Donald said, “and we were reduced to 550 square feet without the luxury of having our possessions around us.”

“Well, it was so stressful not knowing when we’d be returning and what was going on,” Jo Ann commented. “Everybody had to make decisions based on their circumstances. Grandparents were fighting with grandchildren, and all I did, day in and day out, was deal with the insurance companies and worry about all the looting that was going on down there.”

“It was a huge job,” Donald said. “We had 17 claim numbers.”

“Thank God we had flood insurance on all of them (their properties included their home and three rental houses), but we were way underinsured,” she replied.

On a whim, Lisa and Charlie decided to scout houses and asked Jo Ann and Donald, who had no thoughts of house hunting for themselves, to accompany them.

“My wife and I had broached the subject, but she couldn’t even talk about it,” Donald said. Yet, they did find a house under construction that, unbelievably, matched the dream house he had planned long ago.

“She told me it was up to me, and after I picked my jaw off the floor (because she’s never turned something over to me like that), I made an offer, and on Valentine’s Day we bought our new house for our new life.”

Donald’s career in the design business (he is the grandson of legendary Mardi Gras artist Edward Schneider) exposed him to some universal truths.

“Being on the construction side of things, I knew not to go back and tr y to rebuild because they would charge you triple the cost for the supplies,” he said.

Allowed to return to their home two months after the hurricane, they found their three rental properties destroye d, but t heir home, which sits 1 1/2 feet above sea level, was undamaged by the storm.

“Now it sustained damage from the rains, and we lost furniture and family heirlooms because the doors were busted open when they were searching for bodies,” Donald said, “but, all in all, we were blessed that we could salvage most of our things. We had built that house in 1972 on higher ground to help protect ourselves should the unthinkable ever happened. Well, it did.”

The open door, broken padlocks on the gate and the lack of electricity that thwarted the use of the security system unsettled Jo Ann, who continued to suffer anxiety over the threat of looting.

“We eventually sold that house, but we lost a lot of money and all our rental properties,” Jo Ann said. “It was a blessing that we were retired.”

“We didn’t lose our house to the mud like so many of our friends, but we lost our whole neighborhood,” Donald said, “and our way of life. We were both generations deep in that soil. Our roots were just yanked away.”

The broken doors lent easy access to insurance adjusters, however. Jo Ann thought she’d have to make trips back home to meet with them but discovered they had already sifted through her belongings and taken account of the damage.

“The hardest thing was that different adjusters kept changing things on us,” she said. “I never want to have to go through that again.”

The emotional costs were the most retching. In addition to the mind-numbing days of filing insurance claims, worrying over the state of their affairs and surviving, they were snubbed by some of their friends who were less fortunate than them.

“We lost three relationships, and that just tore my heart out,” Jo Ann said, and sighed. “I felt so bad that they held that over me - that we survived, and our home weathered the storm - and so guilty for their pain, that I had to seek counseling and start antidepressant medication.”

“We apparently didn’t suffer to their satisfaction,” Donald said. “On the other side ofthat coin, other friendships became stronger, and we have a new family here.”

Immediately, they were welcomed by the Maumelle Newcomers Club and joined the local chapter of the AARP. New Orleans Little Rock, a group formed of displaced New Orleanians living in Little Rock, embraced the Bersuders.

“We’ve had picnics, parties and, of course, we celebrate Mardi Gras,” Jo Ann said, “and it is fun to share that culture with others who understand it.”

They are both officers in the Catholic Knights of Amer ica (now know n as Catholic Financial Life), an organization they were involved with for 15 years in New Orleans. He’s the president and she’s the secretarytreasurer.

“The funny thing is we didn’t even know they had a branch here. It was so ironic. And it’s a much older branch,” Jo Ann said.

First taken in by the Holy Souls parish, the Bersuders joined Immaculate Heart of Mar y Catholic Church in North Little Rock when they crossed the river. To thank the Little Rock parish for its support, Donald, who now teaches fine art at LifeQuest of Arkansas, painted a likeness of Pope John Paul II and donated it to the parish.

“The Lord had his handin the whole thing,” Donald said. “I worked nonstop for eight hours when, all of a sudden, a tear fell from my eye and landed right in his eye. I heard God tell me to stop - that I’d accomplished what I had set out to do, and so I stopped.”

“We miss our little church family, but we have a new one here,” Jo Ann said. The move has been even harder for her mother, who will be turning90 in December. “We didn’t force her to relocate, but my daughter is her only grandchild, and she wasn’t going to live apart from her.”

Although Maumelle isn’t New Orleans, the Bersuders are content.

“We love it here,” Jo Ann said. “It took my daughter about two years to feel that it was truly home, but she did, and I did. We all consider this home now.”

River Valley Ozark, Pages 233 on 08/29/2010

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