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Mom rescues her family trapped in Gulfport

By MICHAEL BOYLAN
mboylan@TheCitizen.com

As Hurricane Katrina swept into Gulfport, Miss., last week, Fayetteville resident Sandra Lyle sat at her desk at Allan Vigil Ford in Fayetteville and talked to her very frightened daughter, Faith, 23, who was in her home in Gulfport with her 18-month-old son, Brenden.

“She asked me what she should do and I just told her to do the best she could,” Lyle recalled. “I knew then and there, no matter what, that I’d be going to get my baby out of there. I told myself that I would do whatever it takes.”

After a stressful day and night of waiting to hear from her daughter and not knowing what her fate was, she received a call telling her that, though their home was destroyed and their vehicle, a Ford Expedition, had been swept away, her daughter and her family were safe.

Lyle then began making plans to drive to Mississippi, carrying as many donated goods as possible to help out as many people in the area as she could, before returning to Fayetteville with her daughter, son-in law Karl Felth, and grandson.

A trailer to haul the goods was donated to Lyle for her trip, as was a van from Allan Vigil Ford, $100 from her fellow employees, and many boxes of canned goods, clothing and bottled water.

Lyle’s parents, Harold and Betty Goza, drummed up support from their friends at Harp’s Crossing Baptist Church and added what they collected to the stock of supplies.

On Friday morning, Lyle, her son-in-law Eugene McConnell and her 12-year-old grandson Jeffrey Lyle began their rescue mission. Before the day was over, they would be on their way back from a day none of them would ever forget.

Lyle began to see the signs of destruction as they made it just past Mobile, Ala. She saw a lot of street signs out and officers directing traffic. She also saw signs telling her of a curfew of 6 p.m. that was in effect in the area. As they approached the outskirts of Gulfport, Jeffrey pointed out an eerie looking sky, featuring purple and pink elements with a dark haze. The destruction now surrounded them.

“Expressway signs and houses were just torn up,” Lyle recalled. “We saw the National Guard out directing traffic and people trying to salvage anything from their homes and businesses.”

Lyle asked for directions on the best way to reach her daughter’s house and soon enough she was driving down the street. The residents had cleared the debris into a pile on one side of the street so that vehicles could make it through.

After driving over a set of railroad tracks, Lyle could see her daughter standing in her front yard. She pulled up to the house and Faith put her head in the window and embraced her mother, hugging her in a scene that still brought tears to Lyle’s eyes as she described the event.

The mother and daughter then examined the house and the area.

Faith lived in a two-floor brick house and the downstairs windows were all broken. The downstairs rooms, the baby’s room, the dining room and the kitchen were all flooded and nearly everything in those rooms was destroyed.

Among the sights the two saw in the area in front of the house were an organ, a baby casket and an open coffin that had washed up from a nearby funeral home. Lyle also described the wreckage from a nearby bed and breakfast, hot tubs that were displaced, power lines that were downed and dead fish and fish parts scattered all around.

“There was an awful smell of death around and an area that used to be bustling with activity was now so quiet. It was eerie,” Lyle said.

Lyle offered Faith’s neighbors the first choice of the donated goods that had been collected but they were hesitant to take anything as they knew that other people were worse off than they were.

Lyle then encountered a man who knew some people who were among the worst off. A husband and wife and their five children had been kicked out of their home so that their landlord could move his kin into the house in an attempt to protect them.

One family had given the family of seven a tent to sleep in but, according to Lyle, they had little else.

“The mother didn’t want to be selfish, but I just kept telling her to take what she needed,” Lyle said. The family was given clothes, food and diapers, as well as rubbing alcohol and peroxide which the father was using on an injured foot.

“Their 4-year-old child just kept telling us ‘thank you’ after we gave them each item,” Lyle said with emotion, recalling the story.

Lyle and her family took what they had left and drove it to the FEMA building to see where it could do the most good. They told her to drive it to a van that the Salvation Army had set up. Once again Lyle was amazed at the kindness and graciousness that she and her family encountered in people whose lives had been destroyed earlier in the week.

As the night rapidly approached, Lyle and her family returned to Faith’s home to salvage and pack up what they could and start the return drive home. It was nearly 11 p.m. when they were ready to start driving and they had to move and then replace a barricade at the end of the road in order to get out.

The barricades were installed in order to keep looters out of the area. Lyle stated that Faith had heard people roaming in the neighboring houses the night before. They stopped at the FEMA office on the way out of town so that Faith could speak to a friend who is a policeman so that he could look in on her home.

Soon, the vehicles were completely loaded up with family members, the keepsakes and supplies that weren’t destroyed and a number of pets that Faith, a former employee of the Fayetteville PetSmart, had, including two dogs, a stray puppy they found after the storm, a cat, a frog, a lizard and fish. All of the animals are now residing with friends and families in the Fayette area.

It was a busy and stressful weekend for Lyle and her family. The emotions that she and her family had run the gamut from relief and joy to sadness and grief. After the family took showers and had dinner, Lyle began to think about the family of seven that was left behind.

Lyle would return to a normal life the following Monday with an alarm clock waking her up, a shower and a cup of coffee, but for the victims of the hurricane who can’t or won’t leave the area, there is no normal life for them in the foreseeable future.

As Lyle watched the news over the weekend and heard some people criticize the people who didn’t leave the area, she thought of her daughter and her reasons for staying. Earlier this summer, as news of a hurricane was announced, they flew their son out to Atlanta with his other grandmother, only to have the storm completely miss the area.

Still concerned that Katrina may hit the area, Faith’s neighbors convinced her that her home would be fine and that they had endured numerous hurricanes in the past with little to no damage. Lyle also met people who had no transportation out or no money, as well as no place to go.

“I have a very heavy heart thinking about those poor people,” said Lyle.

Today, her family members are safe. Karl has returned to the naval base in Gulfport and Faith will return to see if anything else in the home is salvageable. She is not planning on living there ever again. Friends and family are helping Faith and Lyle, who is currently in the process of moving herself, in anyway possible.

“I was raised to help others in any way that I can,” said Lyle, who stated that her faith in God has brought her through some very difficult times in life. Some of the things she saw this past weekend in Mississippi were terrible but she also some things that were very affirming.

She saw that people are kind and giving and that people will pick themselves back up after horrible things happen to them. Ultimately, she and everyone involved in the rescue mission now know that family is always there to help others weather the storm.