Family ties

Posted: Tuesday, September 6 at 07:17 pm CT by Mike Brunker

PASCAGOULA, Miss. – We close an open loop on our journey by paying a call on Marjorie Hatcher, the mother of Christina Wood, a Katrina outcast whom we met at our hotel in Birmingham, Ala., on the first night of our trip.

Hatcher and her husband, T.H., have spent the past week cleaning the mud and muck out of the single-story brick home they have lived in since 1969, ignoring warnings about the potential health effects of close encounters with toxic molds, sewage and other nasties that could be lurking in the goo. Water service and electricity were restored several days ago, which helps considerably.

(Andrew Locke / MSNBC.com)

“It’s my home and it makes me feel good,” Hatcher says of the cleaning binge, which is yielding slow but steady progress. “It will make me feel even better when I can move out to the garden.”

The Hatchers are caught in their own peculiar type of post-Katrina limbo, as they have hurricane insurance, which covers wind damage, but no flood insurance on their home.

“We’re in a no-flood zone and our agent told us we didn’t need it. Camille didn’t even get in,” she explains.

While the insurance twist is a source of aggravation, Hatcher says she and her husband are thankful they still have a home to worry about.

In fact, her biggest complaint has to do with the fact that the erasure of multi-million-dollar historic homes on the Pascagoula waterfront has received little mention during hurricane coverage on the radio –- their only source of news since the cable TV system has not yet been restored.

“From what I’ve heard, you wouldn’t even know Pascagoula exists,” she says.

The shell of a luxury home sits on the devastated beachfront of Pascagoula, Miss. (photo: Andrew Locke / MSNBC.com)

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