By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Crystal Davis grew up in Dowagiac, attending Kincheloe Elementary School as a "tomboy" playing in the largely undeveloped wooded area along the Mill Pond today occupied by Davis Lane.
Crystal, 20, lived half her life in the New Orleans area, but Hurricane Katrina ended that life, from her mother's home on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain, to the seafood restaurant where she worked as a waitress.
The devastation was so complete "I didn't know where I was. I walked down roads and I was lost because all the landmarks were gone," said Davis, whose grandparents owned a dry cleaners on Commercial Street.
So Crystal came home to where her father, Mark, still lives to find work and to start a new life.
Crystal evacuated to Texas ahead of Katrina on Sunday, Aug. 28.
It wasn't.
Plus, her mother tried to ride out the storm, "and I didn't know where she was exactly. It took me three days of searching to find her. There was no source of communications," Davis said. "There was no way to get in touch with anyone. I climbed through trees that were covering roads for three days looking for my mom. I was very upset" when she stayed.
Davis said her mother turned up at a friend's house in Covington, in the higher area where it didn't flood.
Davis lived in an apartment, but moved back in with her mom while it was being renovated.
There was no food except for military Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), she said. "My mom hooked up the hose to where we could take showers. Cold showers. Bugs. Snakes. It's horrible. I couldn't deal with it. It's so hot that you have to keep everything open when you're trying to sleep."
Sleep was also fitful because of worries about looters.
After a week of drinking the water, "They put out a notice that no one should because there are diseases going around," said Davis, who is anxious to have a lump on her throat checked by a doctor.
Davis "never reads books and I just started reading one because I had nothing else to do. I have problems going outside because if I get too overheated I pass out. Once the roads were cleaned out you couldn't drive because there wasn't gas. Once they did open up the gas stations the lines were a mile long. I siphoned gas out of the lawn mower into the car so I could go to the store and try to get stuff."
Her only other hurricane was a Category 2, which amounted to rain "and a little bit of flooding."
There was one during the Fourth of July holiday when Crystal was in Dowagiac visiting.
She and her friend extended their stay until they could return home.
The storm scattered her friends like so many trees.
Her brother, in the Air Force in Japan, was at even more of a disadvantage trying to find out about his family. "He was freaking," she said.
Davis said a couple of overwhelmed police officers took their own lives and 200 others turned in their badges.
Davis said the causeway extends 24 miles. She drove it every day when she worked in Metarie, La.