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Article published Dec 26, 2005 By ANDREA JAMES BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. -- Christmas cheer bubbled through the Bayou on Sunday, as families who seemingly lost everything held on to each other and celebrated their holiday traditions of gift-swapping and seafood gumbo slurping. About 50 relatives representing five generations gathered at 85-year-old Elodie Delcambre's home on Railroad Street. The brown ranch-style house, which had to be gutted after Hurricane Katrina swamped it, shined with new floors and wood-paneled walls. To feed the small army, two hulking gumbo pots sat on the stove, surrounded by dozens of side dishes - including pork roast, green-bean casserole and candied yams - and six gallons of home-made sweet tea. "We just moved in this house Tuesday," said Ella Clark, one of Delcambre's daughters. "It's just not Christmas without gumbo." To help replace lost photographs, family members put new pictures in silver frames and hung them from the Christmas tree. "It's been an all out family affair getting this house back together," Clark said. After the family said grace, Delcambre thanked them all for restoring her home - it had taken about $25,000 and countless hours of labor to make the house livable. All the women in the room cried and wiped their noses. Normally, Christmas is celebrated at Ella Clark's home, a few blocks away. But she is living in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer, and her house still doesn't have any facilities, she said. "It did not hit me that there was the possibility that there would be water here," she said. Although the area is no stranger to hurricanes, many Bayou La Batre residents, like Clark, were caught by surprise at the height of the surge brought in by the Aug. 29 storm. Bayou La Batre, made famous as Bubba's home town in the 1994 Oscar-winning film "Forrest Gump," starring Tom Hanks, was hit hard when Katrina's winds and water displaced 1,000 of the town's 2,300 residents. Many of the newly-homeless Bayou residents now live in FEMA trailers on their own property or at a make-shift, post-disaster camp set up in Zirlott Park, the city's former ballpark. Charlie Powell, 8, hopped on his pogo-stick Sunday among the neat lines of identical white trailers at Zirlott Park. Then he got bored and scooted up the unfinished wooden stairs to his trailer, to ask if he could play on his new Nintendo GameCube, a donated gift. But his dad, Greg Powell, 45, who was playing on it, told him to go outside and enjoy the fresh air. The trailer was barely large enough to accommodate three children plus Charlie's parents, Lisa, 30, and Greg. Their Christmas tree was 18 inches tall. Greg Powell said the tight quarters reminded him of being on a shrimp boat. But the family, formerly of Grand Bay, said they had a blessed Christmas. They had found out recently that six-year-old Cane will soon be allowed to stop his chemotherapy treatments for his Leukemia. Happily sitting on a bed that took up half of the tiny room, Greg and Lisa Powell's big smiles filled the trailer. "The kids got more stuff than they can put in the FEMA trailer," said Greg Powell, who works for Gulf Pallet Co. in Irvington. "My kids turned the presents down, they got so much." Charitable donations have flooded into the community since the Aug. 29 storm and especially during the holidays. Wrapping paper, boxes and new toys cluttered every surface, the floor, the couch, the stovetop and even the bunk beds tucked in a corner next to the refrigerator. "They even provided cameras for me to take pictures," Lisa Powell said. Holly Powell, an 11-year-old brunette with a button nose and freckles, visited her friend's trailer. Kim Nguyen, 12, and Hien Tran, 13, and Holly played on the bed with the donated makeup, purses, jewelry and pink furry hair bands. Purple, sparkly goo - another Christmas gift - was stuck in the oddest of places. "Earlier we were playing Mall Madness, and the goo kept dropping from the ceiling," Holly said. A few feet away in the living room/kitchen, Kenji Tran, 10, bombed and blasted enemies as he played video games, occasionally fighting with Randy Tran, 9, over who got to hold the controller. Tony Nguyen, 8, who was visiting from Athens, Ga., said the FEMA trailer is his favorite place. Some adults in the shrimping community, however, weren't as blissful as the children. Thomas Wilson, 49, drove around the docks to check out the damaged boats and make sure they were still afloat. "This is the worst," said the former shrimper who now works in a processing plant. "You don't get used to it." Tan Nguyen, 57, and his wife Kich Nguyen, visited their boat, Atlantis, which had suffered about $20,000 worth of damage. He is waiting for insurance money so he can get it fixed. In the meantime, he is out of work. "We lost everything, our house, clothes," said Nguyen, who lived in Biloxi and parked his boat in Bayou La Batre. "We don't have Christmas for this year." --- Distributed by the Associated Press |