Home away from home

Two Hurricane Katrina evacuees find family and football at Armwood High School.

By KEITH NIEBUHR
Published October 17, 2005

	[Times photo: Brian Cassella]
	Cousins Lance Tillison, left, and Jamarl Payton share a laugh near the end of services at the Exalted Word Ministries Church. They and members of their family, displaced by Hurricane Katrina, live in a Brandon motel with the help of the Red Cross.

Lance Tillison enters Room 311 of the Holiday Inn Express with a bag of clothes that have just been washed down the hall. Inside, his cousin, Jamarl Payton, kicks back and watches two other family members battle one another in a game of Playstation 2 football. A friend sits nearby. R&B music plays from a countertop stereo.

"I feel like this is home," Tillison said.

For now, that's what Tillison and Payton, both Armwood football players, have made it.

It's not like they had a choice.

Two months ago and nearly 475 miles away, they were preparing to play their senior seasons in their native Louisiana at Slidell's Salmen High. But after Hurricane Katrina hit Aug.29 and their town was devastated, homes ruined, possessions lost and school destroyed, football took a back seat to more pressing priorities.

"It didn't seem real," Payton said. "It still doesn't."

* * *

On Saturday night of that terrible weekend, Alledra Allen and her family planned to ride things out. The storm was big, but nothing they couldn't handle.

Circumstances changed within hours. Overnight Katrina intensified, and when they awoke Sunday, Slidell was under a mandatory evacuation. Whether they wanted to or not, they had to leave.

Allen, her mother and four children, the 18-year-old Tillison being the oldest, frantically packed. Each grabbed three days worth of clothes and nothing else. That's all they thought was needed, and really, all there was room for.

There wasn't a second to spare. The roads were packed. The wind and rains were fast approaching.

"Let's go, let's go," Allen told them.

Once everything was loaded into the trunk of their Pontiac Grand Am, the six of them crammed into the car and set out for what they believed would be a two-day trip to stay with family in Mississippi. Once Katrina passed, they'd be back in Slidell, where each was born and reared, and life would return to normal.

At least, "That's what we thought," Allen said.

* * *

Inside Room 311, Allen sits comfortably at a table, but is shaken by everything that has transpired. "It's all gone," Allen said.

When Allen and her family returned two days after the storm, there was no home. Roads were covered with trees or water. The grass was caked with mud. The basketball hoop that had stood in the driveway was across the street.

"We had just moved into that house," Tillison said. "We had been there a month. We lost furniture, a couple of TVs, really everything."

Tillison and some friends rode their bikes to Salmen and couldn't believe their eyes. Portables had been flipped on their side. Dead fish were everywhere. And the stench was unbearable. (The school won't be used this year and may be razed.)

"I couldn't believe it," Tillison said.

It didn't take long for him to get cabin fever. With no electricity, no school and the town virtually shut down, Tillison thought to himself, "Man, what am I going to do?"

A family member hundreds of miles away had the answer. Shameka Tomlinson, a cousin of Tillison's and a Slidell native living in Florida, wanted to help. Her fiance, Rudy Burney, played football at Armwood in the late 1980s, and during trips with Tomlinson to Louisiana had gotten to know Allen and Tillison.

"When I heard what was happening, l got a big smile on my face and said, "I know what to do ... just tell them to come here,"' Burney said. "I didn't want to see them sitting around doing nothing and being upset. I said, "Hey, you've got family here."'

Tillison was on a plane bound for Tampa the next day. Later that week, Allen, her other three children - Anthony, 16; Alexis, 11; Michael, 9 - and Payton, 18, boarded a rental SUV and headed to Brandon, not knowing what to expect but figuring they had nothing to lose.

* * *

Before the family arrived, Burney met Armwood coach Sean Callahan, who had been his defensive backs coach years ago. He told Callahan two players (Tillison and Payton) were on the way and asked the coach for help.

"I understood they had just been through a tragedy and we were more than willing to help, but I wasn't making any promises," Callahan said. "I explained that we're a team and that the kids aren't open to new kids this time of year (Armwood had played a game). He said they'd play any position. They just wanted a chance."

Once here, Tillison, a 6-foot-1, 210-pound wide receiver/safety at Salmen who says he was being recruited by LSU and Southern Mississippi, began to concentrate again on school, and football. Practice went well for him and Payton and both were expected to play in Armwood's Sept.16 game against Jefferson. But a day before the game, Tillison was dealt another setback at practice when his right foot was broken on a routine play.

When he arrived back in his hotel room that day, he sobbed.

"I was done," Tillison said.

At first he thought his season was over. But today the cast is gone and he now hopes to play in Armwood's final two regular-season games.

For Payton, who chose to live here with Allen, his temporary guardian, rather than stay in Slidell with his parents (his house also was in terrible shape), things are going well.

"I really wanted to get back in school and back in athletics," Payton said. "I really wanted something normal in my life."

A backup cornerback his first few games, the 5-foot-11, 195-pounder recently cracked the starting lineup. In a Hawks win two weeks ago, he returned an interception for a touchdown.

"So much has happened to them," Armwood receiver Mat Brevi said. "Nobody should have to go through that. It could have been us."

* * *

Getting by isn't easy.

Back home, the family lived paycheck to paycheck. Now, there is no paycheck. The family is among about 10,000 evacuees who moved to the Tampa Bay area, federal housing officials say.

FEMA has helped them. The Red Cross, too.

Allen, a 35-year-old single mother, was a medical biller in Slidell, but is without a job. She says she has had five interviews and three offers, but nothing yet has fit. The family of seven (another cousin, Jeffery, has joined them) needs a home, too. Their five hotel rooms, paid for by the Red Cross, are secured only until Oct.25.

They have been amazed by this community's generosity. Local churches have provided assistance. The school took a collection and raised $500. Two sisters living in Brandon met the family through the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg and have provided them with food vouchers to local restaurants, cash donations and, perhaps most important, emotional support.

"I've written a lot of thank you letters," Allen said. "We really feel blessed. I don't really know what we're going to do. I just know that God has a plan for us."

A return to Slidell, perhaps next summer after Tillison and Payton graduate, is possible. But for now, this is home.

And inside Room 311, life goes on.

"It feels a little weird," Payton said. "But everything is going to be all right. It's going to be fine."

[Last modified October 17, 2005, 01:19:13]