Reporter's Notebook: A Gulf Family's Heartbreaking Return

HOPEDALE, La., Sept. 19, 2005 -- -- As he drives in his new 4x4 toward his home east of New Orleans, Stacy Geraci is asked how he's doing. "I'm about to do bad," he says.

An ABC News crew accompanied the 50-year-old oyster farmer on his journey back to St. Bernard Parish, a county devastated by Hurricane Katrina three weeks ago.

Geraci and his family have lived in this area for more generations than he can count. Three weeks ago, he and his wife, Angela, along with their 17-year-old son, Cody, fled their home by boat. Now Geraci is driving back to Hopedale to see what -- if anything -- is left.

As he travels with his friend Nicky Mones and Mones' 21-year-old son, Kacy, Geraci's expectations are not high. "From what I understand and from what Nicky's told me there's not much left but the slab," Geraci says. "But we're going to find out in a little while, I would imagine."

As we make our way east, the scene changes from waterlogged homes to homes that have been moved several blocks to homes that simply no longer exist.

"This is unbelievable," Geraci says. A general store, a church, a school are all gone. Rubble and rocks stand where the community used to gather.

"Look at the store!" Geraci exclaims. "Oh man! Let me tell you, look at that. Wind would not take something and move it that far. The weight of that water just smashed that thing down."

We drive by what used to be a local Shell Oil refinery. Geraci points out a cement slab. "When Shell built that they said that was hurricane proof," Geraci says. "The slab stayed but everything else is gone. That building was said to be hurricane proof!"

"You know, Stacy, it'll never come back the way we knew," Mones says. "Never."

"Who thought at 50 years old I'd be starting again?" Geraci says wistfully.

We pull up to the house of his cousin, whom Geraci rescued in a boat that day. "He was in that top window of that house," he says. "See that top window, with that board sticking out? He busted the window out with the board.

"When we seen his head coming out of that window and I seen that glass flying, that was the greatest feeling you ever want to see," Geraci recalls. "Because you didn't know. We seen so much devastation coming this way we had no idea what we're going to find here."

Oyster Shells, But Nothing Else

Geraci has been an oyster farmer for 28 years, working for himself and selling to his cousins at Robins Seafood, who owned the shucking house and the icehouse. But little remains of the oyster-farming community here in Hopedale now. "This was also a whole oyster processing plant right here," Geraci says, motioning toward an empty lot.

Red shipping bags hang from trees like Christmas decorations. "You know those little half-shell oysters that you eat at the bar?" he asks. "That is what they ship them in -- in those little red sacks."

We stop to look at the remains of the industry here. All that's left are the shells. It is the oddest thing -- big homes, little homes, churches, gone. But huge piles of oyster shells remain where they were before the storm.

We get back on the road, only a few miles from the place Geraci once called home.

A Place Called Hopedale

We turn onto Hopedale Avenue, which was once lined with camps, docks, fishing docks and homes. They are now gone.

"This was my home," he says.

Geraci has difficulty finding where his house used to stand. "Oh man, here we go," he says. "Here's my house ... is this it? Awwww, Jesus. Awww, damn." He jumps out of his car, Kacy following him closely.

It is a metal slab, with scraps of wood scattered around. It looks like the ruins of a home from the 19th century.

"Aw man," Geraci says, crying and embracing his son. "Goddamn. I grew up in this house. Oh man, Jesus, God." The tears burst out of him, and he exhales.

"The whole house was 3,000 square feet. This was a little bar and restaurant when I was a kid. We were raised in here.

"It's unbelievable. I'm looking right at it and I still can't believe it."

He motions to what once were three different kinds of orange trees. "My mama told me, 'You'll never kill them trees.' And they went through hurricane after hurricane after hurricane," Geraci recalls. "I don't think my orange tree is going to make it this time. I see the green, but it would be a miracle if they did."

Something to Salvage

One brief moment of joy: Geraci spots a black trunk stuck in the mud, yards from where it once stood. "I know that chest!" he exclaims, walking carefully on the mud. "That was the one upstairs."

He circumnavigates the mud and pounds the trunk in jubilation. "That's my mama's coin collection!" he cries. "I thought I lost it! Holy ... Look at this!"

Kacy helps him turn the trunk over and Geraci opens it. Coins, jewels, costume jewelry, doubloons. Some of the contents -- especially the old paper money -- are ruined, but the coins remain. It has both sentimental and financial value. "All the silver -- look at this!" Geraci says. "She never missed nothing. Jeez. Mama, if you're watching, here we go!" The men begin loading up the truck with coins in small bundles.

Also buried in the muck, they find an old photograph.

"This is my mom and dad standing in front of this house when it was a bar and restaurant when they first bought it in 1964," Geraci says. "They had it open one year and [Hurricane] Betsy hit and tore it up." After they got a loan from the Small Business Administration, his parents rebuilt. "For 14 years after that, it was nonstop. This was the hoppin'-est little joint around. They had outside speakers, the old folks used to dance out here in the parking lot and in the evening it was cool."

A Devastating Goodbye

"This is pretty much goodbye -- because I'm not coming back," Geraci says. "Other than to clean the land. I'm not living here. I can't. I can't, you know, no way."

"This is heartbreaking," he says, but he is afraid it will happen again.

"Oh, I know it," he says. "I knew this was coming. I didn't know when it was coming -- but it was coming."

"We shouldn't be here," Geraci says. "It is a damn shame to say because I love this place. But maybe we weren't meant to be here."

He takes one last look around. "It was home. It was fun. My kids skied in the bayou, they swam, they jet-skied, we had race boats, we had race cars. Everything was right here. We did everything right here and it was always me, my wife and my kids, always. Just like it was my dad -- I had no brothers and sisters -- so it was just me, my mama and my dad. We were all best friends.

"Well, you know what? We'll be best friends somewhere else."

Sarah Rosenberg and Jay Lamonica contributed to this report.