Katrina storm story

From Bay Waveland Yacht Club hurricane Katrina blog...

Woody and Grace's beach house is gone. Our home is there had 5 feet of water so all our "things" are pretty much gone with the exception of what was up high. The house is one strong place...no structural damage.Woody's story is something to hear. So here goes.

He stayed in the house on the Beach. Around 9am he said as he stood in the back of the house near the kitchen he watched the wave crash though the front door and then collapse the front porch. Realizing that he needed to get out quickly, he went for the back door. When he exited, the entire house fell in. The steps had washed away so he "fell" into the water. His car was floating, house parts, etc. and he was blocked for a while. His goal was getting to Randy's boat in the back yard...100 yards away.

Somehow he managed to swim to the boat and somehome he managed to get inside of it.....we have a hard time getting into that boat on a sunny day with a ladder! Anyway, back to the story. His leg was bleeding profusely from cutting his achilles tendon, etc. that he really should not be alive. He took Randy's ropes in the boat and wrapped them around his leg to stop the bleeding. As you know our boat has no shelter but the console so he got behind that and basically held on.....for 4 hours....while everything in town flew past him.

After the storm was over he checked on the Chamberlins and Rouches and then went to the beach, caught a ride to Dunbar Avenue, then he walked to our home off Sunset Drive on Dan Russell. He stayed in our muddy water logged home with our animals from Monday afternoon until Randy found him on Wed.

Randy had essentially gone to our house to check on the animals as we just knew Woody was no longer with the living. Randy and Mike Haas walked in the house and Woody shouted "whose there"...he was afraid from the sound of it. You can just imagine what was going through both of their minds at this point. Woody had no information and had been alone 2 days little food or water and had no idea if we would or could come get him.

My sweet neighbors, a chinese family who owns "Asian Gardens" brought him what they had and I think this saved his sanity and life. they also helped clean up his leg as best they could. So he came home with Randy and the rest is our new life..whatever that brings. My office/apt building on Dunbar Avenue (withstood Camille) was fine on the top floor with a little damage. Randy will be locating his office there and staying there while rebuilding the bay. I've never been so happy that I decided to use that space as my office as it is about 2,200 square feet with 2 bathrooms and 2 kitchens. Thank God. I will work from there too with my staff when we get going and will commute from Fairhope...so again please let us know if any of you sailors have friends there that can call us about real estate.