Lashanda Brown is quickly putting her life back together after Hurricane Katrina, but it’s clear to her and her three young daughters that things will be different for a long time.

“The hardest thing is with the kids…when I say to them, ‘We’re going home,’ they say, ‘This is not our house – it’s an apartment,'” she said. “There’s been a lot of explaining.”

They have traded their bigger home, including a back yard and a swing set, in Gretna on the West Bank of New Orleans, for a five-room upstairs apartment. The girls are in new schools, missing their old friends. And, when things quiet down at night – that’s when the questions come.

“Nighttime is when it’s the hardest and they ask the most questions, but I’m trying to be strong,” Brown said. “We’re just taking it day to day. Some days it’s positive, and everything is new, but the same side could be scary.”

Brown and her family evacuated their home in Gretna Aug. 28 – the day before the storm hit coastal areas. That day, she had never even heard of Vicksburg. When she and her caravan, which included 11 other family members, stopped to rest, two women led them to a shelter. Now, Vicksburg has become, not only her shelter from the storm, but her new home.

After spending 20 days at First Baptist Church, one of five original local American Red Cross shelters in Warren County, Brown is embracing her new life and moving on. It was hard leaving the family atmosphere that was formed at the shelter.

She found an apartment Sept. 9 and was able to pay for her deposit and first month’s rent from a $1,265 check from Red Cross family assistance. Brown said they stayed at the shelter as long as they could because of the bonds they had made.

“It was like family. When you eat together, you become closer,” she said.

But the inevitable had to happen and Brown and her three girls, Alexis, 6; Alaina, 4; and Ayanna, 3, are settled in their apartment on Hope Street. Many of her family members that evacuated with her are living in the same complex.

Brown has scratched out old appointments in the calendar she keeps with her. But, she is already replacing them with new ones.

Her old work schedule will soon be scratched out and fresh ink will return with a new schedule. She will begin a week from Monday at River Region Medical Center’s west campus, as an LPN.

“I worked for the Little Sisters for the Poor, (an order of Roman Catholic nuns) and in June they told us that they were leaving New Orleans,” she said. “I knew I would be looking for a job anyway, just not in Vicksburg.”

One of the hardest things about the transition for Brown is leaving behind the comforts of home. Her old house had a yard in which her girls could play. They have traded that in for an extra bedroom with a lone TV against the wall and scattered books and toys.

While she has partially furnished her apartment, Brown is still getting used to her new place, which includes used furniture from a hotel furniture re-sell shop.

“You don’t want to get attached to material things, but when I became a nurse last year, I always wanted to change my furniture out,” she said. “I just bought some furniture two weeks before the storm. When I found myself buying used furniture – I’m thankful for it – it just makes you a little emotional.”

Brown is already making the best out of the little she has. She bought a complete bathroom set that has bright yellow and blue for her kids and she turned a used desk into a dining room table.

While Brown misses some of those comforts, there were only three things she regretted leaving – scrapbooks of each of her daughters that she made throughout her pregnancies.

“When the looting was happening, I told my dad I should go back and get them. I was really willing to go back and risk it for these,” she said.

On Sept. 6, the day residents were allowed to go back and see their property, Brown went back solely to assess damage and grab her scrapbooks.

“You’d be surprised by what you want to hold on to,” she said.

What she found was a lot of tree damage and a water line a foot and a half high. While her house may be fine, she is concentrating on staying in Vicksburg and making a life for her family here. Brown said she doesn’t think she’ll go back to Gretna.

“It’s hard for the children – a lot of adjusting. Now they’re saying it’s not safe to go back,” she said. “(My) neighborhood is completely different.”

She’s hoping as time goes by, her girls will think of Vicksburg as home. After all, it’s her girls who are helping her get through.

“It’s a good thing to have kids because it distracts you – it gives you motivation,” she said.

In other developments: