Ocean Springs: After the Flood

Local and National Communities Rekindle Hope for a School on the Gulf Coast

Children's House Montessori School of Ocean Springs, MS, is thriving.

Mary Ann Bounds, director of the school, may have doubted she would ever again hear that sentence.

Certainly not as she looked out from her home early Aug. 29 and saw Hurricane Katrina wash away all five homes to the north of hers.

Not when the floodwaters forced her and her husband to exit via a second-floor window, nor when they waded back later through waters laden with fuel and waste.

Not when she received word that her 5-year-old school building was a total loss.

And the news did not improve soon.

Four of the school's five board members lost their homes; one was paralyzed in an accident returning from the evacuation.

Many school families were without homes, some living in FEMA trailers. Six families and one teacher would not return to Ocean Springs. Three of the school's five teachers lost their homes. Bounds and her husband would live the next four months in a neighbor's living room.

But the doubts she may have experienced were no match for the commitment of the local and national Montessori community,

The Storm

It seemed like a good enough start to the school year.

"On Friday," Bounds said, "we had a parent work day for the yard." That yard was the home to a 350-year-old oak. By Saturday she heard the early warnings.

"We got word of the storm on Saturday morning. We gave it a lot of thought and moved items in the school that we thought might fly if there were a storm. Then we went home to prepare to evacuate." Her home was 22 feet above sea level, a block and a half off the water.

Ocean Springs is no stranger to rough weather. "We are threatened all the time," Bounds said. "We had had an active season so we had already evacuated a couple times.

But this day, evacuation was not an option. Interstate 10 was clogged and she and her husband returned home.

She had lived through Hurricane Camille in her youth and figured she would survive this, too.

At 2:30 a.m. Monday the electricity went out. She and her husband moved from their bedroom to the hallway because of wind. "One of the first big trees fell across the road. At 8:30 an oak fell, on the house. When the house at the end of the street fell apart and came up the street, we felt like we needed to leave."

They managed to reach the house of a friend of their son and waited the storm out there. By 4:30 that afternoon she waded through water up to her knees and saw the disaster that was her house and neighborhood.

"It was awful," she said. "No one else on our street was left. The houses were all gutted. The school was the second heartbreak."

It was devastated, with floodwater reaching the ceiling on the first floor. One set of knobbed cylinders survived, but everything else, including the venerable oak in the yard, was gone.

It would be a long haul.

The Montessori Community

"Katrina revealed to us the kind and caring nature of mankind," Bounds said. "We have been shaken by disaster but we have been deeply moved by the incredibly generous response of the Montessori community."

Her mother-in-law in Daytona Beach contacted the American Montessori Society, which sent the call for help out through Betsy Coe and the Houston Montessori Center.

The first response came from Mary Gaudett of the Montessori School of Pensacola, who provided a range of assistance, including materials from the Jamison site she had closed. Then came more. (See box on page 7.)

Parents

"We met with parents of most of the school's 36 children at the end of September," Bounds said. "Everyone was in such different places. Some lost everything, some lost nothing."

"Adults took it much harder than the kids. They were so eager for school to get up and running, knowing that their kids could be back to doing what they were loving. Then they could focus on their properties and their insurance companies."

"I thought we should not try to do this unless we feel a great reward from it," Bounds said. "But if you are not rejuvenated by children, maybe you should look somewhere else. Those close to her, her husband and mother-in-law, she said, knew what rejuvenated her.

"There is something about being centered in this environment and with children. Every day I doubted a little bit, but I believe in prayer and I draw strength there. And I was encouraged by parents when I didn't think I could go on.

"I told them 'I'm going to needed your help. I don't know if I can do this. I'll try.' With the support of these people, the school came to be-and we realize how much these children mean to us."

"The parents were my lifeline," she said. "I don't think I was surprised by them. I taught their kids and knew their families."

Parents who lost everything still found ways to contribute. One parent assigned a secretary to help with the recovery. Little items meant a lot. With nearly every paper item lost, Bounds was delighted when one parent brought in a parent handbook.

Bill Greider, a local businessman and a member of the sponsoring church whose teen-age children had gone to the Children's House, donated the temporary property, and the Children's House was able to begin classes within a month of the storm.

"It was all about communication, dedication, knowing the children needed normalcy," she said. "We have four absolutely incredible teachers working with those kids despite the damage to their own homes."

"Our parents have been incredible," she continued. "Some were displaced from their homes due to flood damage, but they were there, cleaning the school for our/their children!

"Sure we cried, but that's part of it, too."

Recovery

"The Montessori community got us back on our feet. We never could have done it without them," Bounds said.

Parents prepared the temporary building, which was not designed as a school. "It was chopped up, but worked beautifully," Bounds said. The material donations were pouring in. "You won't believe how beautiful this environment is."

Meanwhile, the building the school occupied until four years ago is being readied for their return. Children had taken up the task of cleaning up the playground and parents were pulling up the deck.

"We are still grieving. I can't tell you how amazing it was to watch the children. But I do still miss the tree."