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Hurricane Katrina

An evacuee family starting over, again

Leaving storm-battered Mississippi behind, a father and daughter make another fresh start in Pasco County.

By COLLEEN JENKINS and STEVE THOMPSON
Published September 22, 2005

After his divorce and just before the storm, William Haynes moved with his daughter Shekitta to Pascagoula, Miss., for a fresh start. Then Hurricane Katrina swept through the coastal town of about 26,000 residents, dumping 4 feet of water into the place Haynes was renting and taking off part of the roof, too.

Trees and boats sat in the roadway leading to their home. Chairs and tables from McDonald's blocked a bridge. It got so hot in their friend's house that Haynes used his hand to turn the ceiling fan, trying to circulate the air.

Pretty soon, the father and daughter decided to start over once again.

"What little stuff we had (left)," Haynes, 40, said, "we gathered it up."

Their destination: Pasco County.

They didn't exactly pick the place. Never heard of it, Haynes initially thought. But he learned that a dispatcher who worked with his sister at the Moss Point, Miss., Police Department was headed to Florida, and he asked about tagging along.

He already had looked into other options through church groups. Illinois had too much snow. South Carolina seemed good, until 15-year-old Shekitta Haynes was too skittish to fly.

Florida, of course, also had hurricanes. But after living through Camille, Frederic, Georges, Ivan and Katrina, "I only remember the bad ones," the Mississippi native said, how much worse could it get?

It was time, he decided, to move on. Time to get Shekitta back to school. Time to find work as a cook or carpenter somewhere else.

So Saturday, on an hour's notice, the Hayneses loaded some clothes, a TV, DVD player and computer into a stranger's SUV and rode south.

The SUV owner, Lisa Barabas-Henry, was no stranger to this process. Since Katrina hit the gulf states, the director of the Holy Ground shelter in Hudson has made several trips north with the idea of helping people relocate to Pasco. On her latest trip, 12 people caravaned with Barabas-Henry from Mississippi to find out what this area is all about.

By Wednesday, at least three families had decided to stay.

"If you're willing to change, you can just about make it anywhere you go," said Jarvis Nelson, temporarily a resident at the Comfort Inn in Port Richey. "That's the way I see it."

Nelson, 36, and his wife also lived with their two young kids in Pascagoula, just west of the Alabama border. They lost their single-story, three-bedroom home to flooding. This week, they were driving around west Pasco looking for houses. Nelson interviewed Tuesday for a job here as an electrician. His wife applied for a teaching position.

Nelson's parents lost their home too. But they're not leaving Pascagoula.

"Which I understand," he said. "But I'm young, so I can venture out a little."

Shekitta Haynes is young, too, but sees the situation a little differently. Asked whether she wants to return home, the quiet 10th-grader shook her head.

"Nothing to go to," she shrugged. Then she smiled. "We should make a new start anyway, so I can go to Florida State for college."

Early Wednesday afternoon, Shekitta and her father got the key, literally, to their posthurricane beginning. Thanks to Hyundai of New Port Richey & Partners, the Hayneses and another family from Gulfport, Miss., will stay in apartments in Tarpon Springs rent-free for six months.

The donation is among the huge outpouring of support that has been directed to Holy Ground's effort to help hurricane victims. Barabas-Henry said Wednesday that the shelter had collected $30,000. She estimated she has brought 66 people back to Pasco, seven of whom she later booted from the shelter for partying and breaking curfew.

William Suchocki, who heads the Hyundai dealership's charity arm, met the evacuees and Barabas-Henry at the donated apartments on Wednesday.

"Not a bad place, huh?" he asked.

"Not when you don't have nothing," said 36-year-old James VanderPol, a table games dealer from Gulfport who just got a job with SunCruz gambling ship.

William Haynes walked silently by a pool and a debris-free grassy lawn. Home in Mississippi, he said earlier, looks like a "war zone." This place looked like a home.

The group continued on to a two-bedroom, carpeted apartment, where the air conditioning blew strong and cool. William moved from room to room, looking around in disbelief. Shekitta excitedly hopped between rooms, and quickly claimed the bedroom with a balcony as her own.

Shekitta hugged Barabas-Henry. William shook Suchocki's hand.

Back outside, before he headed back to Pasco to pick up donated food and furniture, William Haynes stood near his daughter. Was he ready to call Florida home?

"Yeah," he said smiling. "Forever."

[Last modified September 22, 2005, 01:04:14]