WAVELAND, Miss. – Hurricane Katrina wiped away Dan McManus’ house, garage and guest house. But the killer storm couldn’t wipe away precious memories of the years he and his wife, Susan, have spent in their dream home in this beachfront community.
It’s those memories -- of weddings, special parties and grandchildren playing outside on warm summer evenings -- that the ex-Marine, former building contractor and retired insurance man holds in his mind’s eye as he plots a strategy to rebuild his home on Nicholson Avenue.
"It was a beautiful street," says the bearded, bespectacled McManus, sweeping his hand beneath a canopy of battered oaks alive with the music of tree frogs and cicadas. "Everybody had pride of ownership."
After Katrina flattened the neighborhood’s homes, "The only way you could tell which was yours was by your oak tree. Everyone knows their own oak tree." When he clambered over the detritus that still lay in the street right after the storm, "Mine was still here," he recalls, looking skyward and adding, at least "half here."
In the rubble of Katrina, Dan McManus found his property by finding this oak tree. (Jim Seida / MSNBC.com)
Spry at 67, McManus leads a tour of his acre lot, hopping over broken bottles, falling-down fences and nail-filled boards, warning that "you better get a tetanus shot if you’re going to be down here much."
"The guest house was over there. You see that mirror with the four hooks on it? I said to my wife when we left, get your jewelry, but she left her ring on one side and her watch on the other and I came back and I found them both. The watch was still running."
McManus and his wife, a retired school principal, moved here from Abita Springs, La. After buying the home, built in 1934, they spent seven years – and $100,000 – to create a retirement haven where they loved to entertain friends and relatives, including six children and their offspring. He was most proud of a recently completed swimming pool, which he has cleaned out some with the help of volunteers and hopes to save from the Army Corps of Engineers’ lot-clearing bulldozers.
"One set or other of the grandkids used to come over every weekend and play in the water" at the beach, "or in the pool, and other things we had here," he says. After Katrina, "the 4-year-old called me up and said, ‘Pops, is the pool still there?’ And I said, ‘Yes, and you will swim in it again.’"
And near the pool will be one very special rebuilt pergola, or arbor, which was the scene of a granddaughter’s wedding. The bride, 20 on her wedding day, died a year later of a brain tumor, McManus says, his voice cracking.
He has already salvaged the white-painted lumber and stacked it with care near the pool. "I want to be sure and put it back the way it was with the same wood," he says. "I will do that."
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When I was a young girl, we had a summer house on Aiken road. The only way we could find it in all the pictures of this storm was by the old oak tree me and all my cousins played on as a child so I know what Dan is talking about. Everything is gone now in Waveland but those memories I have of my childhood. Katrina can't take those away!
Sue, Double Oak, Texas (Sent Oct 19, 2005 1:34:27 PM)
As a native Mississippian and current resident, I'm heartbroken about Katrina's damage. Our beautiful state will never be the same. Perhaps if there's anything to be learned from this tragedy, it is that we must not become attached to possessions, to temporal things that wind and water can snatch from our feeble, by comparison, grip. I want to do all I can to help restore what's been blown down or flooded. The loss of possessions, and even that of jobs, seems unimportant in contrast to the true tragedy of Katrina: the deaths it caused.
D. Kyzer, Jackson Mississippi (Sent Oct 21, 2005 2:34:58 PM)
Dear Mr. McManus,
I was in MS as a ARC disaster response worker and I walked Gulfport and Biloxi in silence. My loss for words was at the immense panarama of destruction. Even though we have earthquakes and fires and flooding here in CA, I still have never seen anything like what you folks have had to contend with and survive down there. Certainly loss of life is a tragedy and a profound grief. But, loss of a home is another kind of grief. It gets harder for some folk to rebuild and start again and one's home is more than four walls. It is the memories that are contained in those walls. And I believe the fear is that people feel as if they may not have gatherings again that create memories. And certainly losing family brings additional sadness to those thoughts. I encourage you to grieve your great losses and start with small steps each day- when you are ready. None of us can know what each human being suffers but, perhaps what we can do is put forth a kind hand or word and let them know you are thought of, never forgotten and remembered in prayer!
C. Maris,Valencia, CA (Sent Oct 21, 2005 4:27:11 PM)
I'm a native Missourian; I visited and worked in MS and LA for about five years. I am heartsick and devastated for the folk in the coastal communities who have suffered such an IMMEASURABLE loss. My heart still aches for each and every person affected by the horrendous storm. The good people of these communities always extended to me the hospitality inherent in their personalities; all I have to give you in return is my prayers and my sorrow. I know that each of you has a backbone of fine steel; you will recover and be stronger for your suffering. You will never be forgotten, nor will your gracious and kind spirits. Help one another; you will help yourselves.
Susie B. Southeast MO (Sent Aug 24, 2006 7:21:03 PM)
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