THE SRAMEK FAMILY

Pass Christian, Mississippi

The Sramek Family a few years ago - current photos of the five of them together were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.

Lindsey, Emily, Steven, Betsey, Amanda

This photo is from another family member.

Steven Sramek built his home in Pass Christian, Mississippi, about 18 years ago. Steven is a civilian Oceanographer with the Navy, Civil Service.

Before he bought the property, Steven spoke to several longtime residents in the area about the potential for the property to flood. A man that had lived across the street during Hurricane Camille in 1969 said the water never even came close to Steven's property, so Steven decided to build his house.

Steven bought hurricane insurance and asked the agent at the time if he should purchase flood insurance. The agent told Steven he felt he did not need flood insurance because the property was 1000' from the Gulf, 24' above sea level, and since the flood from Hurricane Camille didn't even come near his property, there should be no worry about flooding.

Over the past 18 years, Steven and his family have had to evacuate the house many times a year because of hurricane warnings and every time they returned in the past there was never any damage to the property.

The night before Katrina hit, as everyone was getting ready to evacuate, Steven got a call from work telling him to bring his family in to the office to ride out the storm there, which he did. Fortunately, all of the employees and their family members who rode out the storm at that work location were fine.

The next day, Steven was able to make it back to where his house used to be. He found a pile of debris approximately eight feet high where the house was located, although the attic seems to be pretty much intact. Unfortunately, the attic is in his neighbor's back yard.

Shortly after Katrina, Steven contacted his insurance agent and was told he may or may not be eligible for help, depending on whether the damage is considered "flood" or "hurricane." Steven is presently waiting for that determination. Steven has also been told by a representative of FEMA they could give him a low interest loan of $29,000. It will probably cost more than that just to clear his lot.

Since the hurricane, Steven's wife Betsey and his two youngest daughters, Lindsey and Emily, have been living in California with his mother-in-law. His oldest daughter, Amanda, went back to school in northern Mississippi.

Steven has been living part-time at work and part-time with friends. He has had a few leads on rental homes, but there are a lot of people needing them now, so has not been able to acquire one yet.

In the meantime, Steven needs a steady place to stay, the basic necessities to live on, and help to find a way to have a new home. He longs for a time when he can bring his wife and two daughters back from California so the girls can start school again, and so they will be together as a family once more.

UPDATE from Steven Sramek 10/15/05: The community here is completely shattered, the town of Pass Christian was wiped out completely. I drove through it yesterday and was amazed. Houses up to a mile inland were destroyed. The bank, the courthouse, the police station - all destroyed. The storm even washed out the 5th floor computer room of the Hancock Bank building.

The government, FEMA, and Red Cross have never experienced a situation this big or this bad and are just not able to handle it. People have been living in tents for a month and have given up on getting FEMA trailers so they are going to neighboring states and buying trailers.

No one knows much of anything. We find out information by word-of-mouth, and the rumor mill is going strong, so half of what we hear is wrong.

The church groups and volunteers are a bright spot. They have been feeding and clothing people from the start. I wonder how long they will keep it up.

Our house is a complete loss. I have been working on the rubble pile for four weeks, clearing it by hand, and haven't found anything of value yet. Plus it is so hot. I drink a gallon of Gatorade and just sweat it out. We have our wreckage and that of about 20 other houses on our property, so I am not even close to finding our debris yet.

I just didn't take the storm seriously enough - nobody did. Two of our neighbors died, and several had to swim out of their homes. What amazes me is that several of the neighbors say they will rebuild. I don't think that I could even consider that.

Instead, I have taken the money generously donated to us from DREAM ONE WORLD for which we are very grateful, and have used it as a down payment on a small house in the next town further inland from Pass. Some family and friends are bringing us furniture soon, since we have nothing. We truly are starting over.

I felt it was a good idea to buy a house as soon as possible to get things back to some kind of normalcy. I felt that living in a trailer near the debris, in someone's back yard, or in a trailer park with everyone just thrown together would not be a good situation for my family.

Emily's soccer team has started again, minus a few players who have relocated to Illinois, Washington, etc. Some of the other teams have donated and replaced the soccer uniforms lost in the storm.

So in the big picture we are OK and will recover. However, for a year or two it is going to be a big, confused mess.

Thank you again to all who are helping us through this difficult time in our lives.

Sincerely, Steven Sramek

As Steven's "pay it forward" gesture, he asked DREAM ONE WORLD to "adopt" the entire town of Pass Christian, Mississippi, and help as much as we could there, especially before the next hurricane season in 2006. He became our go-between for funding and where the funds were bestused.

Please visit the "Pass Christian, MS" page at left to see photos and read Steven's account of the "progress" in his town - which seemed to have been largely forgotten by America and the rest of the world. Thank you.

Sample UPDATE from Steven Sramek 8/11/06:

Pass Christian had an election the other day. 1,500 people voted in what was considered to be an excellent turnout.

The population before the storm was about 6,850, so my guesstimate is that the population is down by at least half.

Virtually no construction is going on. The houses that were "only damaged" are being restored.

The houses that were destroyed, well, the debris has been cleared, but only a very small handful are being rebuilt.

One lifetime resident told me the other day that she gets lost now, since there are no landmarks.

Many folks are anxiously awaiting the Mississippi Development Authority building grants that have been in the pipeline since February.

That is the only hope for many of the people.

The bay bridge is still out. This is hurting the area immensely. It is not expected to be rebuilt until next spring - over 18 months away!

The railroad bridge was also destroyed, but was rebuilt in only four months...!

The housing shortage is hurting the businesses here. I have heard of several people having to turn down jobs due to the lack of housing. There are numerous "NOW HIRING" signs and banners out in front of businesses.

By the way, I haven't run across anyone from Fema, The Red Cross, or The Salvation Army at all. The Salvation Army had a big temp building in town a while back, but it was mostly empty...

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." - Mother Teresa