[StBernard] Woman finds a miracle in mud

[Westley Annis]

Woman finds a miracle in mud
BY LINDSAY VANHULLE
lvanhulle at record-eagle.com

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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