Life Mississippi couple loved vanished in storm
Kevin and Charlotte Young describe life on the run from Katrina
BY JAY BODAS
Staff Writer

At left, since fleeing from their home in Mississippi, Hurricane Katrina evacuees Charlotte and Kevin Young are now living in Woodbridge at the Homestead Studio Suites, an extended-stay hotel, with their dog, Jimmy, but they are still looking for more permanent housing. Above, the Youngs used to eat at the Fire Dog restaurant in the Bay St. Louis-Waveland area, but now the street lies in a pile of rubble.

Mississippians Kevin and Charlotte Young were lucky to escape Hurricane Katrina, but in the process they lost almost everything they owned.

They are now starting their life over again, living out of the Homestead Suites, an extended-stay hotel in Woodbridge.

COURTESY OF ORANGE COUNTY, FLA., SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT

“We left when my dad started putting pressure on Kevin to leave,” Charlotte said. “The Civil Defense official that arrived told us we had to get whatever we needed right then and go because looking out the window, we could see the water was coming in. And if you didn’t evacuate, they made you sign a form, and they wrote your social security number on your arm so that they could identify your body afterwards.”

The couple is from Bay St. Louis, Miss., a coastal town of just over 8,000. Only three miles down the road is the town of Waveland, which garnered national media attention immediately after the storm for the total devastation there.

Bay St. Louis was no different.

“The water was creeping in,” Charlotte said. “The storm was not even here yet, and there was the water coming in already. I just never dreamed it would turn out this way. I asked them how the house handled [Hurricane] Camille, and the people said that the water did not get into the house. I wanted to leave, but Kevin wanted to stay. He wanted to ride it out, but I didn’t.”

The couple finally left at 2 p.m. on Aug. 28, after Civil Defense officials convinced them it was in their best interest to evacuate.

“We drove straight to McComb, Mississippi, and arrived there at 10 p.m.,” she said. “Because of traffic, it took us almost eight hours for what should have been a two-hour drive. The Civil Defense people said that McComb was right in the middle of the storm, but my brother lived there and we could stay with him.”

Before Katrina hit, life for the couple was close to ideal. They lived in Mississippi for two-and-a-half years, since moving from Chicago.

“It was a wonderful place to live, like a mini-Florida,” Charlotte said. “We thought we had it made, as New Orleans was just one hour away, only two hours from Jackson, and a few more hours from Florida. We could go anywhere.”

Then Hurricane Katrina struck. Conditions leading up to and during the storm were unlike anything they had ever seen before.

“We were living off the water of a swimming pool at one point, figuring out how to get clean water to drink and clean our clothes,” Charlotte said. “Then we were in McComb, at the local Wal-Mart. After waiting in line for hours to get in the store, we were allowed only 15 minutes inside to get what we needed. People were fighting for batteries and gas containers.”

On their way to McComb and even later in their drive up to Missouri, even something normally as simple as gassing up the car turned into a drama.

It was bumper to bumper on the interstate and motorists could not get off to get gas because there was no gas available.

“And when we could get to a gas pump, there were 100 cars in line for gas, for food, for anything,” she said. “At one point, we got 2 gallons of gas for $17. Another time we waited in line for two hours to get 7 gallons of gas. Everywhere we went people were fighting for gas. We had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to wait until 9 a.m. when the pumps finally opened. We were only allowed $25 of gas each, and only if you had cash. If you didn’t have cash, then you couldn’t get gas.”

In McComb they also found a community of fellow evacuees.

“My brother took in other evacuees, including a nurse he knew from New Orleans,” Charlotte said. “The woman’s husband was a 911 dispatcher who had to stay behind, and it was days before she found out if her husband was OK. It turned out he survived by staying on the roof of a building.”

While in McComb, the evacuees shared what little they had with each other.

“One person had extra ice, and another had an extra generator to keep people’s refrigerators going, and when we went into town, we got whatever everyone needed,” she said.

They stayed a week, unable to leave because of downed trees and gas shortages. Blockades were everywhere.

“The police gave us a safer route where we wouldn’t have to worry about gas as much, though it was always a concern, and we did have to deal with gas shortages along the way,” Charlotte said.

The couple eventually made it to Kevin’s brother’s Missouri home, where they dropped off two of their three dogs before continuing on to New Jersey. They were amazed that the devastation was not just limited to coastal areas, but that whole swaths of land in the Southeast were ravaged as well.

“What many people do not understand is that the storm did not just hit the coast, but it devastated Louisiana and a lot of small towns in Mississippi and all over,” Charlotte said. “It went through entire states and damaged homes all throughout, like in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which is a big university town. Their main hospital had to be evacuated, and they had to completely shut it down.”

Kevin is convinced the death toll from Katrina is much higher than what authorities currently believe.

“In Pass Christian, Mississippi, which is just six miles northeast of Bay St. Louis, apparently there were 300 bodies that were discovered in an apartment complex, and this discovery has not even hit the news yet,” Kevin said. “A lady working for Mississippi Power, the main utility company there, told us this, and she was completely overcome. I am sure the total death toll is a lot higher than 1,000.”

The hurricane brought out both the best and worst in people.

“A police officer from New Jersey went down to Bay St. Louis on a mission of mercy, and he tried to help a woman and her children and stopped for them, but when he went back to his car, someone hijacked his car,” Kevin said.

“I was hoping other countries weren’t watching us... we want other countries to be like us, and yet this is how we are going about things,” added Charlotte.

But the storm also brought out a brighter side, she said.

“There are many proud people there who aren’t afraid of rolling up their sleeves and getting to work to fix things up again,” she said. “The mix of people there is incredible; on the same street you will have million-dollar houses alongside shacks and middle-income homes. I could always leave my door unlocked.”

Kevin and Charlotte decided to come up to New Jersey, where Kevin works as a software programmer. Before the hurricane, he would work during the week and then fly back to Mississippi to spend the weekends with Charlotte.

On the long drive up to the Northeast, the couple was struck by how others reached out to help them.

“Along the way up here, people have been wonderful,” Kevin said. “After they hear Charlotte’s accent and see the Mississippi license plate on our truck, many people will ask whether we are from the area affected by all of this. They would be compassionate, and they would give us discounts on things and give us clothes. There is even a restaurant near us that would not let us pay for a meal we had there.”

The Red Cross has provided them with seven boxes of food, Charlotte said.

Although Kevin is himself a victim, he found himself giving back when he could.

“After Missouri, when we got to Arkansas, a man at a rest stop came up to me and said, ‘I don’t have any money, but I do have a new bow. Would you buy it from me?,’ referring to a new bow and arrow set he had,” Kevin said. “I just went ahead and gave him the money I had in my pocket.”

It was only after they arrived in New Jersey that the couple found out that their house had been completely destroyed, with just the concrete slab of the building’s foundation remaining. The storm also deposited an unexpected addition onto their front lawn.

“I don’t have a house, but apparently I now have a boat,” Kevin said dryly.

They have also found a new challenge in the form of struggles with their insurance company.

“As we were leaving Mississippi, a State Farm insurance agent told us to make a list of the contents of our house, as we have the best policy,” Kevin said. “Then when we got to New Jersey, they told us we were not covered at all. Our insurance agent told us that any claim past $10,000 goes to the insurance adjuster, and he said the authority was the adjuster’s. But the State Farm insurance adjuster just kept saying, ‘My prayers are with you, but I hate my job, … because nothing will be done for you.’ He said this even before he looked at my property.”

The couple had insurance for wind, hurricanes and storms with State Farm.

“We called State Farm on the phone soon afterwards, and at the time State Farm told us we were covered,” Charlotte said. “Apparently a memo was sent out later at the state level saying that if wind and water came at the same time they would consider it flooding.”

“Since they are going to interpret this event the way that they are apparently going to, my question is, why would they allow us to take this policy out if our home would not be covered?” Kevin said. “Jim Hood, the Mississippi attorney general, says insurance companies are breaking the Consumer Protection Act, and he has filed a lawsuit against State Farm and others, but I also wonder how long litigation is going to take.”

State Farm spokesman Dick Leudke said the company would look into the Youngs’ claim this week and give them a response.

“As a general statement, losses caused by rising waters would be considered flooding,” he said. “Losses due to wind is covered by the homeowner’s policy.”

As the Youngs were evacuating, State Farm gave them $1,000 due to an optional clause they had taken out in their policy.

“This was money for food and lodging that was part of an optional ‘loss of use’ clause, which was also part of our original policy,” Kevin said. “We of course went through it pretty quickly, given all the costs that quickly mounted up. At one point, I even needed to get new tires for the truck to make the trip up here.”

“State Farm has since changed adjusters on us as well,” he said. “They advised us to go to a local State Farm office for a second installment of $1,000 due to the ‘loss of use’ clause.”

Despite widespread news reports of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s initially inadequate response to the disaster, the couple approves of the assistance the organization has given to them thus far.

“FEMA has an interactive site to file things on their Web site,” Kevin said. “They were very responsive in helping us. In fact, the adjuster for FEMA was on site at our house even before the adjuster for State Farm.”

Since they have no home to return to, the couple is planning on staying in New Jersey for at least the next six months. They are looking for a more permanent apartment.

“I work for FYX Inc., a consulting firm, and our client, Arizona Iced Tea, has been paying the bill for our stay at the Homestead Suites here in Woodbridge,” Kevin said. “But we are looking for a place to live for a more extended period of time.”

Charlotte is now looking for a job in the area as a teacher.

“I teach elementary special education K-12, and I am supposed to report back to work next Wednesday, but I have nothing to go back to,” she said. “Some fellow teachers I know said they would never be the same. I’ve heard that everyone is quiet, still in shock and sad. Three teachers lost everything, and a lot of teachers did not come back.

“As a teacher, I would wake up at 3:30 in the morning and be at school by 5 every day. If you love what you do, then it’s not work,” she added.

Offers of assistance and support to Kevin and Charlotte Young may be e-mailed to charlotteyoung@bellsouth.net.