Back Home Along The Gulf Coast

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the images of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast that poured via satellite into our ABC News New York City offices were to prepare me for the assignment of following several displaced residents who made their way to Colorado Springs, Colorado- or so I thought. Through the television screen, I recall witnessing a sense of hopelessness and preparing my mind for what to expect on my arrival to Rocky Mountain state.

The conservative town just east of the Rocky Mountains is where a die-hard liberal by the name of Norm Vaux made it his mission to find a place for those displaced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Through investors and coordination with the local Red Cross, Norm and a team of volunteers began traveling down to the Gulf Coast to "rescue" those who shook his foundation while watching news out of the region.

Following an email introduction a few weeks after Katrina hit, Norm invited me to Gumbo Night at the local hotel in the 'Springs where the Red Cross was housing many of the evacuees. I recall a sense of disappointment in myself for assuming I would encounter destitute. Instead what I walked into was a joyous room filled with music and food. There was gumbo, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and Mariah Carey in the background singing about "shaking it off."

There were brown faces, white faces, even a puppy. The group had met on a bus charted by Vaux- and more than once, they reminded me that they are all one unit. A young black New Orleans couple who had just gotten engaged, Warren and Shantay; Osay, a man in his late 20's who had befriended the couple on the bus (the group would become inseparable); and Deborah Vaughn, a caucasian mother and her three teens who left her husband behind in Waveland, Mississippi. He was to guard what was left of the Mississippi home the family had purchased a month before the hurricane hit. Colorado Springs, Colorado is six-thousand feet above sea level. And all saw the natural disaster as an opportunity to start a new life.