Family is happy with new start

NEW ORLEANS - For Bradley and Connie Tompkins, it was once impossible to imagine a time when Hurricane Katrina wouldn't be foremost in their minds.

The August 2005 storm unleashed violent floodwaters that destroyed everything the Tompkinses - and thousands of others - held dear. The couple's ground-floor apartment near Lake Pontchartrain was submerged in 12 feet of water for weeks.

It wasn't just that they'd lost their possessions - the wedding gifts they'd received a year earlier, the treasured items like photos and love letters, and the teddy bear made from a suit owned by Bradley's late father - or had made an insurance misstep that meant they wouldn't be compensated.

They'd lost their sense of security. They'd lost their faith in the idea that people who work hard and do the right things will be OK. They'd gained an uneasy feeling that it could happen again.

They could have left, turned their backs on New Orleans. Bradley's family is from Media, Delaware County, and for a while, the couple lived in Berwyn.

They decided to stay. Almost five years later, their family is thriving.

They've been joined by sons Dylan, almost 3, and Jackson, 10 months. Connie finished her Ph.D., Bradley has tacked on another master's degree, and both have jobs in the public-health sector. Their lives are filled with children and work and celebrations like Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest that make life here so unique.

"I always wondered when I wouldn't think about it every day," said Connie, 33. "But gradually, life just went on."

They're even renting an apartment in the same Lakeview home where they lived before the storm. The only difference? This time, they're on the second floor, not the first.

"We couldn't live on the ground floor," Bradley, 32, said. "I would have problems sleeping on the ground floor in Lakeview."

In some ways, the Tompkinses' story is a lot like their city's. It hasn't been a quick recovery or an easy one, but gradually, life has gotten better.

In the city at-large, signs of that recovery are evident: New homes, an evolving school system, streetcars that again glide up and down city blocks. The election of a new mayor and the Saints' Super Bowl win has infused this city with a sense that things are on the upswing. The tourists who stayed away after the storm are coming back as are residents who have been displaced for years.

After the storm destroyed their home, the Tompkinses were evacuated to Baton Rouge. They didn't know if they'd ever return to New Orleans.

"We didn't know if we'd have a city to come back to," Bradley said.

But when it became clear that some people were going to come back, they decided to give it a shot. Their goal was to get back to their old neighborhood, where Bradley said he felt accepted right away.

Not everyone supported their decision. A full year after the flood, out-of-state family members were asking if there was still water in the streets.

"They were hearing all these crazy stories after the storm," Bradley said. "I don't think anybody even thinks about it now."

The couple never lost their jobs, so they took the few things they'd saved from their ruined home and moved into an apartment in a section of the city that hadn't flooded. Even there, they chose a dwelling on an upper floor.

"We were a little more shell shocked back then," Connie said.

In April 2007, the couple moved back to their old neighborhood. There were only three other occupied homes on the block.

"The first year was really slow," Connie said. "You could hear crickets." Connie said.

But gradually, the empty lots near them were filled with new dwellings. Many of the same neighbors who had so welcomed the newlyweds in 2004 were now greeted as old returning friends.

The couple had always wanted a family, but had put their plans on hold after the storm. Now they were ready to welcome Dylan and Jackson and refocus their lives.

"We talked about [how] we thought our lives would be divided 'Before Katrina' and 'After Katrina.' For a few years, we dealt with the ramifications of it every day," Bradley said. "But having kids changed the focus."

They feel their family is now complete. They'd like to buy a house, preferably in Lakeview.

There's no sign that this family or this home has ever been anything but whole. The furniture and the art destroyed by the flood have been replaced. The toys and laughter in the living room are evidence that life has gone on.

Prominently featured on one wall is a painting by local folk artist Simon of New Orleans, who is known for colorful works featuring expressions like "Be nice or leave." This piece is personal: The wood canvas is a shelf taken from the couple's destroyed bedroom armoire. The bottle caps from a local brewery that create the frame were collected by the couple and the friends in the months after the storm.

The expression painted inside is, "Our Prize is the Moon." The words come from a documentary Bradley was watching sometime after the storm. The narrator was describing how at some point in the universe's foundation, a meteor collided with Earth and the resulting debris coalesced into the Moon.

"I was thinking how something beautiful could come out of something so destructive," he said. "That's how we feel, too."