The bottom line

WAVELAND, Miss. - The Brooks home occupies a prime spot in town, sitting right at the end of Coleman Avenue - Waveland's equivalent of Main Street - about a half-mile from the beach.

Set behind the railroad tracks, which historically served as a final buffer against any storm surge, the Brooks home was considered safe. It wasn't in a flood zone.

In just a few hours, with the family riding out the storm upstairs and seven feet of water churning downstairs, Hurricane Katrina shattered any illusion of safety.

"We were stupid to stay," said Judi Brooks, looking around her washed-out living room. "And we were lucky."

But the family had much more to worry about than their ruined home. The floodwater reached far enough inland to inundate the family's three businesses - a mortgage company, an insurance agency and the family restaurant.

Katrina had spared their lives, but not their livelihood.

"We didn't know whether to get the house together and work on the businesses, or get the businesses together and hope that we would have enough time to regroup," Judi said. "We decided the priority was to get some income coming in. You can't survive without it."

And so, largely setting their home aside, the Brookses took on a task that would prove more significant to the recovery of the town and of the family.

In just under four months, the Brooks family restaurant was once again welcoming customers.

"What would you ensure?" Tommy Brooks asked, sitting in the tent that now houses his mortgage and insurance companies. "The golden egg, or the goose that laid the golden egg?"

Flooded expectations

Tommy knows what it feels like to start from scratch. He lost everything after Hurricane Camille in 1969 and was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1995 when the youngest of his four sons, Brett, became seriously ill.

Even so, Katrina was a shock.

"The first 45 days, it was just like you were in a daze," he said. "It's been - it's been very tough."

That stems in no small measure from the fact that the Brookses weren't covered against the one element of the storm that did the most damage - water.

"We did not have flood insurance on our businesses, nor did we have flood insurance on our home," Tommy said. "We were very unlucky and very stupid at the same time. But they usually go together."

Whether unlucky or unwise, the Brookses' plight is shared by thousands of others along the coast whose homes and businesses were well outside federally defined flood zones. Flood coverage is mandatory for those buildings considered to be at greatest risk - those in category A flood zones - but not for others.

Tommy, with more than 30 years in the insurance business and about a decade of experience in dealing with coastal mortgages, never thought he'd need flood coverage. All of his properties are in category C zones, defined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as being at the lowest risk.

Flood maps are being completely redrawn in the aftermath of Katrina, but that is small comfort to those who believed they were safe.

"We're not in a flood zone," Tommy explained. "At least, we weren't before."

That means there will be almost no insurance money to help the family get back on its feet, unless Congress eventually steps in and allows federal flood coverage to be purchased retroactively.

For their home, the Brookses are hoping that still might happen. But the businesses couldn't wait.

"He was right on top of things with his insurance company," Judi said, referring to her husband. "He was out there in the parking lot with a little tent and a table."

People needed to file claims on damaged cars and property, though the agency ultimately lost about 60 percent of its policyholders.

"In the process of filing their claims, they canceled their policies because they didn't have a house to insure anymore," Tommy said. "We're starting all over as an insurance agency."

But business began to trickle back in, mostly from people replacing destroyed cars. The little tent and table eventually were upgraded to a military-style "pod" with canvas walls, a metal floor and a real door.

One of the Brookses' sons, Brian, volunteered with a company assembling the mobile shelters along the coast, so the family received their own pod as compensation.

Tommy has it set up like a miniature office, complete with a new computer and printer. He's using the same desks he recovered from the flooded building. "There's still mud in the drawers," he said, opening them up to prove it.

The restaurant - the crown jewel of the family's small business empire - proved the most challenging to reopen.

Thousands of dollars of cooking equipment had to be repaired or replaced, and the building itself - adjacent to the mortgage and insurance office - had to be cleaned out and rebuilt well enough to satisfy a health inspection. All totaled, it cost about $23,000 to get the Brookses cooking again.

The family tapped its savings and used the money from new insurance commissions.

The final boost came in the form of a smart business move. Borrowing the equipment, the family set up a refilling station for propane tanks in the parking lot of the restaurant. Opened the first week in November, the station has done brisk business - FEMA trailers are heated by propane.

"We put the profits straight into the restaurant," Judi said.

On Dec. 27, BB's Bar-B-Que & Snak Shak became only the third restaurant to reopen in Waveland.

In its first week, the Shak did so much business that closing time came only when the food ran out.

"It's been a madhouse," said 17-year-old Ashley Hoda, a longtime friend of the family who began working at the restaurant two months before Katrina. "We're already starting to get a lot of our regular customers back."

Not quite home

Back at home, with FEMA trailers in the yard, life has begun to reacquire a rhythm - albeit one with a touch of the absurd.

"Look at this!" Judi said, standing in the remains of her kitchen the week after Christmas. "Can you just imagine living like this on a day-to-day basis?"

Upstairs, where the family lived for six weeks after the storm, 15 year-old Brett and his girlfriend were watching a movie.

"It's his first girlfriend," Judi said. "I have to make sure to have her home by curfew."

She looked on, bemused and exhausted, as 21-year-old Brennan hauled a load of firewood to the upstairs fireplace. "Don't burn the house down!" Judi called after him, as firewood clattered to the floor upstairs.

"It'd be better for the insurance if they did," she joked.

The family doesn't know how long it might be before the house is livable again. Tommy said he doesn't want to rush things. "I want to go back when it's right."

Though the FEMA trailers in the yard provide enough room for everyone to sleep, the boys occasionally choose to sleep in the upstairs of the house.

"I can't stand the trailer," Brennan said, launching into a half-joking demonstration of how small the beds are. "It's better than sleeping in the cold. That's all I'll say about it."

Though Brett and his girlfriend were edging closer to curfew, the day was far from over for Judi. She had arrived home after cleaning the restaurant and making a lengthy drive to the nearest open Sam's Club for supplies, and she still had to balance the restaurant's books before going to bed.

"My day won't stop until midnight, then we'll get up at about six and do it all over again."

 

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.