Divorce stalks Katrina survivors Story Highlights Katrina survivor Ricky Murray is trying to save his marriage Despite heart attack, he’s still trying to repair his flood-damaged home After three years in FEMA trailer, wife is talking about divorce Pastor says he’s busy counseling couples who are stressed out; many split up
By Sean Callebs CNN
(CNN) — Ricky Murray was having a miserable year long before a storm named Gustav started threatening the Gulf Coast area. Now he’s afraid he will lose his family because of a previous hurricane.
It has been three years since Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,800 people, scouring Mississippi beach towns down to bare sand and rupturing the protective levees around New Orleans, Louisiana.
Eight feet of floodwater left Murray’s home in Slidell, Louisiana, uninhabitable. He’s been working on the house, but he and his wife and three children have been living in a FEMA trailer.
Murray also lost his job. He recently suffered a heart attack, brought on in part by stress, according to doctors. But what’s really agonizing for him is that his wife of 16 years says she is considering a divorce. Watch their difficult living situation »
“My whole life is my wife and my kids,” Murray said.
Louisiana has kept figures on almost everything Katrina-related: the number of people who died, the number who were injured and the houses that were damaged or destroyed.
But the state is not keeping statistics on the number of divorces in a post-Katrina world. iReport.com: Has Katrina impacted your relationships?
Murray blames the hurricane for troubles in his marriage, saying, “Her and I never argued, never fought, never nothing until this hurricane, until we got cramped in that FEMA trailer.”
His wife, Iris, wouldn’t talk on camera but did say, “Everything is unstable. The kids aren’t being raised right because they don’t have the proper space.”
Murray says it’s not for lack of his effort, but his limited finances have kept the family stuck in the trailer while he tries to renovate the house.
“I have busted my butt over the past few months just to get this side of the house functioning,” Murray said. “I have done everything I can to try to keep my family together, then I had a heart attack — what, a year ago — inside the FEMA trailer.”
Murray says the couple has tried counseling and turned to their church, but the reality is that he could lose everything.
Page 1 of 2Divorce stalks Katrina survivors – CNN.com
1/6/2009http://cnn.site.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Divorce+stalks+Katrina+su…
? 2008 Cable News Network
“A lot of people that we grew up with, that I know, have split up, divorced or went on their way because of this hurricane,” Murray said.
The couple is getting help from the faith-based group Volunteers of America through Kay Taylor, an outreach worker for the organization.
Taylor says that there is a potential for help but that there is a lot of sadness.
Overall, she says, couples are more argumentative, and domestic violence is up, as is the suicide rate in the region.
“You have to wait, you have to take help when it’s there, and sometimes that means getting on a waiting list,” Taylor said.
In New Orleans, Pastor Ray Cannata decided to take a job at a small Presbyterian church just a week before Katrina.
Cannata says he has been spending more time than ever providing couples counseling.
In simple terms, he says, stress is like a truth serum.
“Pre-existing problems that people are able to sort of ignore and work around come to the surface and have to be dealt with, ” Cannata said.
In many cases, sadly, he says, people choose to walk away rather than work through problems.
Murray says he appreciates the FEMA trailer but says it is like living in a “sardine can.”
He’s of Italian descent and says he doesn’t believe in divorce.
His great goal is to finish his home, and he hopes the new space will convince his wife that they can work through their problems.
But the reality is, his wife could pursue a divorce.
“She could; there’s no doubt,” he said. “It’s been very hard on her. I am trying to accommodate in every way possible.”
All AboutHurricane Katrina • Marriage • Hurricanes and Cyclones Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/08/29/broken.homes.katrina
Check the box to include the list of links referenced in the article. gfedc
Page 2 of 2Divorce stalks Katrina survivors – CNN.com
1/6/2009http://cnn.site.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Divorce+stalks+Katrina+su…
By Jim Loney
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – Almost three years after Hurricane Katrina, nearly 40,000 families still are living in vulnerable mobile homes and trailers across the U.S. Gulf Coast with another hurricane season just two months away, the top U.S. disaster official said on Wednesday.
The number is down from about 100,000 families, or some 300,000 people, in April 2006. At one point following the devastating 2005 hurricane season, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency was housing 143,000 families in mobile homes and trailers.
FEMA Administrator David Paulison said the agency, which was heavily criticized for its hapless response when Katrina swamped New Orleans, is moving about 800 families a week into hotels, motels or apartments.
The families are either living at group sites or in trailers in the driveways of their homes as they rebuild.
The six-month Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1. Forecasters are expecting above-average storm activity.
“As far as rebuilding, I did expect it to take this long,” Paulison told a small group of reporters at the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando. “But as far as housing people, I did not foresee that they would be there almost three years later.”
Katrina killed 1,500 people and caused $80 billion in damage when it swept ashore in late August 2005 near New Orleans, shattering the levees protecting the low-lying city and swamping entire neighborhoods.
The three worst storms of 2005 — Katrina, Rita and Wilma — together caused about $110 billion in damages. The record-shattering season produced 28 tropical storms.
The presence of so many people in the flimsy temporary housing complicates preparations for the hurricane season because those families must be evacuated in the event of a threatening storm.
Paulison said the agency was on target to move everyone from the group sites by June 1 but was having “a lot of trouble” getting some of those
Page 1 of 2Nearly 40,000 Katrina families still in mobile homes | Reuters.com
1/6/2009http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN0239834420080402
displaced by Katrina to move again, even from cramped mobile homes that are often reduced to rubble in big storms.
“People simply don’t want to move,” he said. “It hasn’t been as easy a task to get people out as we thought it might be.”
(Editing by Michael Christie and Bill Trott)
© Thomson Reuters 2008. All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters and its logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Thomson Reuters group of companies around the world.
Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
Page 2 of 2Nearly 40,000 Katrina families still in mobile homes | Reuters.com
1/6/2009http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN0239834420080402