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January 27, 2008

Woman finds a miracle in mud

BY LINDSAY VANHULLE

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CHALMETTE, La. — Residents in southeast Louisiana know the formula for hurricane evacuations: You leave for a few days, but you'll soon be home.

It's more a pain than a plan.

But when the evacuation orders started two years ago for Hurricane Katrina, then growing wildly in the Gulf of Mexico, Carol Saling knew this time would be different.

She told some of the women from her church about her gut instinct, but they didn't believe her.

"We evacuate constantly," Saling said. "I said, 'We're coming home to nothing.'"

Her prediction came true.

Saling, an administrative assistant at First Baptist Church of Chalmette, lost nearly everything after Katrina. About 18 inches of mud coated her house, which she saw for the first time about a month after the storm.

Students from Traverse City Christian School spent the past week repairing Saling's church. Volunteers also were instrumental in repairing her home, and she moved back in September.

Saling evacuated to a friend's home in Vicksburg, Miss., before Katrina struck. The trip, typically about four hours, lasted six as both directions of the main expressway out of town clogged with northbound traffic.

When she finally had a chance to return to Chalmette, Saling salvaged a Rubbermaid container from her home, but little else.

"I cried when I put the lid on," she said. "I said, 'This is all that's left of my house.'"

Her FEMA trailer arrived a year to the day after the hurricane, and she then began to renovate her home. It's been more than two years, but Saling's eyes fill with tears as she talks about why she stayed, when so many others did not.

"It's home," she offered. "I've rebuilt once."

Her husband, Robert Saling, said the storm helped him realize the amount of material items he had — and how many he didn't need.

"It could have been worse," he said.

But amid the devastation, Carol Saling experienced her own small miracle. She often removed her wedding band and other rings while in the kitchen, and she left them on the windowsill when she evacuated. Nothing was there when she came home, except for the rings, found buried beneath the mud.

Saling's eyes brightened at the memory. "Now they don't come off my fingers."

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