(2 of 5)
VINCENT J. MUSI / AURORA FOR TIME
NO WAY HOME: The Betzes poke through debris 300 yards from their house |
•THE BETZES
THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS
As a teacher and a mother of two, Anne Betz knows how important a good school is to the life of a small town. Still, it wasn't until Katrina had practically destroyed her hometown of Pass Christian, Miss., and reduced her brand-new house to a mere concrete slab that Betz, 37, realized what a lifesaver a good school could be.
Very little is still standing or open in and around Pass Christian--once a vibrant, diverse Gulf Coast community of 7,000 or so, where golf balls and oysters now dot debris fields filled with waterlogged furniture, bathroom fixtures and broken china--not the Catholic church, not the local Wal-Mart, not the gas stations. But what is up and running--and what has given the Betz family enough hope to go back and rebuild their lives--is Coast Episcopal School in nearby Long Beach, which both of Betz's children attend and where she is a teacher. In an otherwise chaotic environment where electricity and phone services are still not fully functioning, the 130-student elementary and middle school is providing a sense of normality. "The school is what's bringing people back," says Betz, who fled Pass Christian for Sandestin, Fla., around 200 miles away, the day before Katrina hit, with her husband Albert, 39, son Owen, 7, daughter Jane Todd, 10, and mother Anita Orfila, 76.
When the Betz family first settled into a condo in Sandestin--with Albert, a commercial insurance broker, staying in Gulfport, Miss., to keep working--school caused immediate problems. A few days after the kids were enrolled in the suddenly overcrowded local school, they learned they would be bused to a different one 25 miles away, arriving late to that school and leaving early every day. Packed like crayfish on the road for an hour, they were loath to do homework.
So when Betz heard that Coast Episcopal was going to reopen in October, she made up her mind to head back. For now, the Betzes are living with her mother in Pass Christian. Ten days before Katrina hit, Orfila had moved into a small house at the back of the Betzes' property. The house was all but destroyed in the storm. But the unfurnished house she had moved out of and still owned needed only a month or two of repairs. Betz spent her final weeks in Sandestin shopping for furnishings the family would need in Pass Christian. "If we don't buy it here, we're not going to find it there," she says.
Although both children are happier to be back at their old school, they have had difficulties adjusting. Owen has asked his mom, "Will anything ever be the same?" Jane Todd alternately picks fights with her brother and withdraws to her room. Betz, who before Katrina was the school's gym teacher and admissions director but has now also taken on the first-grade class (replacing a teacher who quit), has had trouble sleeping. And Orfila says, "I find myself going to get something and then realizing it's no longer there."
The Betzes are still waiting to hear about their application for a government loan that they could use to rebuild or to pay off their mortgage. They have not yet decided where or even whether they will eventually build a new home in Pass Christian. Albert is partial to staying right by the Gulf, where the old house was. Anne would prefer to be on higher ground and, in any case, wonders whether the couple could afford the new insurance rates for waterfront property. They could simply buy and stay in Orfila's house. One thing is certain: wherever they end up, it won't be too far from Coast Episcopal.