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(Mail Tribune / Jim Craven) No going back now Ex-New Orleans residents who've move here say they don't want to live in fear of another hurricane By paul fattig Mail Tribune Midway through an interview Monday afternoon, Medford resident Margaret Edwards popped a question. "What's Ernesto doing now?" asked the retired licensed practical nurse who was born in New Orleans, where she still has relatives. Edwards, 78, wasn't asking about a relative: She was interested in the status of the tropical storm Ernesto, which is blowing toward Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. But she knows one of Ernesto's relatives. "That Katrina, she was a son-of-a-gun," she said. Advertisement A year ago today, Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, filling her single-story house on Wickfield Drive where she had lived for a quarter of a century with nearly 12 feet of water. Her house was just three blocks from a breached levy. Edwards, who has spent nearly a year with daughter Lorna Moller in Medford, is among an estimated dozen Hurricane Katrina evacuees, including some from along the Mississippi coast, who settled in southwestern Oregon. She was joined this past week by her daughter and son-in-law, Rosary and Joseph Brooks, who rebuilt their New Orleans home but have decided to sell. They are buying a home in Eagle Point. "I'm tired of running," said Joseph, a retired electrician. "I'm not going to run no more, so we came here." The couple, who had visited Medford before Katrina, had planned to move to the Rogue Valley when Rosary retired some eight years from now, Joseph said. Katrina changed all that. "It's not the rebuilding," Rosary explained. "It's just that every year you have to pack three or four times and go away for a few days. Most of the time when you come back everything is OK. This time it wasn't. "What people who don't live there don't realize is that conditions are still not back to normal in New Orleans," she added, noting she and her husband left the city just three weeks ago. "Our neighborhood had maybe three gas stations and a convenience store open," she said. "The hospitals are not open. The schools are not open." Yet the Brookses, whose house is in a suburb of New Orleans that wasn't as hard hit as other areas, consider themselves fortunate. Their house only had about 9 inches of water, although the water remained for two weeks. "They wouldn't let us back in for two and a half months," Rosary said. "By then the mold was up the walls pretty good. The furniture was gone because it sat in water." The firm where she worked in the payroll department paid for an apartment for the couple, who were leaving New Orleans on their wedding anniversary when Katrina hit. When they returned to New Orleans, the firm paid for an apartment for them until a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer became available. "We were lucky," she said. "My company took care of us. A lot of people didn't have the help we had." Toni Goar, 48, and her fiance, Donavon Clark, 40, now living in Talent, weren't as fortunate. Their apartment in Bay St. Louis, Miss., was condemned in the wake of Katrina. "We're starting to rebuild here but that was our chosen home," said Goar, noting they had lived in Jackson County before moving to the scenic Mississippi coast. "We feel forgotten in some ways," she said. "A lot of help has been geared towards New Orleans. I feel bad for the people in New Orleans. But people need to think of Mississippi as well as New Orleans when they think of Katrina." Goar, who is disabled, noted that Clark was working on a floating casino in Mississippi before Katrina struck. He has gotten a job with a local manufacturing plant but recently injured his back. As a result, he works fewer hours, making it difficult for them to make ends meet, she said. But she credits friends and relatives for helping them as well as church groups. FEMA hasn't been much help, she said. "We had to go through living hell to get help from them," she said. "It's been a long year." Margaret Edwards understands the suffering that fellow Hurricane Katrina evacuees feel. "I had 11 feet, 9 inches of water in my house for two weeks," she said. "It was a mess. It just hurt my heart to see it. It sent all my hopes, my dreams and my plans down the sewer." Her youngest daughter, Christina, drove Edwards to Pearlington, Miss., the day before Katrina hit. From there they went to Texas, then she flew to Oregon. "It was quite an exodus," she said. "Thank God we didn't stay in my daughter's house. The storm twisted it around and flopped it over in the yard." She also knows that just down the street from her house, eight people — grandparents, parents and children — died after they refused to evacuate. "I had good family support or I wouldn't be here today," Edwards said. "I'd be floating on down to Japan." She noted that her mother, Margaret Ireland, born in New Orleans 98 years ago, was also safely evacuated from her home, thanks to family members. She is now living in Algiers, La. "We consider ourselves very fortunate," Rosary said. "No one in our family was hurt or killed. You can replace cars and furniture. You can't replace family members." But Joseph does have a small complaint about his new life in Southern Oregon. "I can't find any grits here," he said. "No grits. Can't get no chili without beans. And I can't get used to the coffee without chicory. I'm going to get a friend back in New Orleans send me some with chicory in it." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] . 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