Refuge in a Rec Room

Though they're the first to stress that their surroundings are luxurious compared with those of other survivors, this is hardly the ending that the Chases imagined on leaving the rat race of Washington and their good jobs -- Greg worked as a marketing manager for Fairfax County, Tana as a federal attorney -- to return to New Orleans in 2000, where they hoped for a simpler life.

They moved into Greg's boyhood home in a blue-collar neighborhood between two oil refineries, where the neighboring houses were filled with other couples like them -- natives who had missed the slower pace of Southern life and decided to return. Their house became a magnet for neighborhood children. "I'd close my eyes, and with all the kids running around it was 1965 all over again," Greg said.

Knowing that their close-knit neighborhood has been lost, drowned in a matter of hours, is almost worse than losing their home, Tana said.

"I wish I could explain the instant sense of community that I felt there," she said.

They have not been back since they evacuated in their small sedan early Sunday morning, the day before Katrina hit land. They went first to Tallahassee and then to Arlington, where Tana's two brothers live. The family was split between the two houses before reuniting in Fairfax, where Tana's sister has more room.

These days, sitting on the couch in their new digs, the Chases pore over satellite photos of their neighborhood on Greg's laptop.

It seems that their house isn't underwater anymore, Greg tells Leo. At least one of Mr. Landry's oak trees survived, he says. Leo's school, Lacoste Elementary, is gone.

The small software company where Greg was cheerfully "underemployed" as a customer-service representative is also gone: Greg wasn't paid last Friday, and so the Chases are temporarily without income, except what they can begin scraping together from relief agencies. The Arlington chapter of the Red Cross gave them a debit card valued at $450, and Greg got a $2,500 advance on his claim with State Farm insurance. The family is hoping for a $2,000 check from FEMA soon.

The family has already decided not to return to New Orleans, except for a visit when the all-clear comes to see what, if anything, can be salvaged from their house. Greg is looking for a job, and Tana hopes to revive her part-time home business as an editor.

They hope to buy a new home, maybe in the Springfield neighborhood where they once lived. Already they're spooked by the Washington area's super-high real estate prices.

"I'm trying to focus," Greg said. "We've got to look forward and can't look back. . . .The reality is our community is gone. . . .Can you imagine 30,000 people trying to rebuild at the same time? I don't want the kids to go through that. It would disrupt their lives for a long time. And [a hurricane] could happen again."