Five years ago today, thousands of south Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast residents who had packed up whatever pieces of their livelihoods could be jammed into their cars sought some form of shelter from the most catastrophic hurricane to roar out of the Gulf in a generation.

Some rode out the wrath of Hurricane Katrina with friends and relatives in Vicksburg and Warren County, where wind speeds peaked at hurricane strength and created challenges for local officials and charitable groups learning on the fly how to deal with the storm and its aftermath.

Sons and daughters. Mothers and fathers. Family pets.

Those who spent appreciable time in Vicksburg after Katrina ran the gamut from low-wage food-service employees to musicians who’d traveled the world — sons, daughters, mothers, fathers and countless pets. Their stories contain images common to the storm’s fury: half a day spent on roads to nowhere, no electricity for a few days if they settled somewhere in the hurricane’s 60-mile-wide path.

Some sought places to live and work here. Others found companionship and peace of mind once thought impossible in the storm’s wake. Evacuees interviewed in recent weeks hit on a common thread regardless of where life has taken them — a sense of belonging.

‘This is where I belong’

Charlie Miller has friends all over the world, having produced and arranged much of New Orleans R&B legend and boyhood friend Dr. John’s early work in the 1960s and performed in just about every significant jazz locale on the globe.

Miller, 72, has returned to the Crescent City, settling in suburban Kenner and entertaining brunch patrons at the Royal Orleans Hotel in the French Quarter. But he stayed in Vicksburg for two years after Katrina chased him out of Bucktown, near the 17th Street Canal levee breach, playing mostly solo trumpet sets at churches, coffee shops and restaurants in Vicksburg and Jackson. He played at an Easter sunrise service at Fort Hill in the Vicksburg National Military Park and at a candlelight vigil at City Front to mark the storm’s first anniversary.

“I felt that’s the way I could give back,” Miller said.

Miller’s travels since mirror the comeback of small businesses that pay the bills for many a horn player, though a jaunt to France proved the storm had sapped much of his emotional state.

“I wanted to play in France, but I didn’t know I was still in shock,” Miller said.

Miller played some gigs in the cozy downtown of Thibodaux, La., before realizing the pull of the big city was still greater than the desire to retire.

He reunited with Dr. John to play Jazzfest and an annual year-end gig at the House of Blues.

“I was born a musician. This is where I belong,” Miller said. “But, if I wouldn’t have had that lifelong connection to New Orleans, I’d have bought a house in Vicksburg. I love the way people help each other every day.”

‘I’m gonna spend the rest of my days in Vicksburg’

James Boone still picks his guitar and croons tunes about life and love, but considers himself retired from the stage.

His journey differed from that of most longtime Crescent City residents who left homes they’d lived in for years.

“God works in mysterious ways — he just sent me home,” Boone said.

The Vicksburg native mixed a 30-year career playing in clubs and around New Orleans with a flooring business. As Katrina bore down on the central Gulf Coast, Boone gathered up his wife, Donna, his 2-week- old chow mix/retriever, Jab, two of his 15 grandchildren and two of their friends and piled into an Oldsmobile for a nine-hour ride from his Mid-City home to a Vicksburg house still in the family.

“I had been through Betsy; I was 25,” said Boone, now 70 and residing in a Washington Street home where his aunt once lived. “I told them get some clothes together, throw them in that carry-all, we’re going to Vicksburg. My grandson and two of his friends were working at the time as equipment setup men at the convention center. They said, ‘We gotta get our money.’ I said, ‘Man, money ain’t no good to a dead man. Get your stuff and get in the car!”

When the levees gave way, the resulting deluge found its way about three-fourths up his home’s front door. He eventually sold it, but found a worthy reclamation project in his aunt’s old house after power was restored in Vicksburg.

“The windows were broken out, it was in real bad shape. But I re-did it, one room at a time,” Boone said.

A pacemaker now keeps time on his heartbeat, yet Boone finds energy to strum riffs.

“Down on Bourbon, they called me a country blues man,” Boone said, “because I did the country music, but I did it with a blues flavor. I made records, but I only got one. I didn’t need the records; I needed the money.”

“I’m gonna spend the rest of my days in Vicksburg,” Boone said. “I’m gonna die right here in this house. But, I told my wife, I gotta live another five years cause I wanna have ’em change my battery at least once.”

‘I think I found a good thing’

Tony Thompson had already been through two transitions when Katrina knocked him for another loop — the prospect of living in a small town among strangers.

“I didn’t have anyone here. Zero family,” said Thompson, a 17-year New Orleans police officer who, after an injury, segued into private security at casinos, then to the gaming business.

The Gretna, La., native shopped his talents in the area’s gaming outlets and landed a job at Ameristar Casino about a year after the storm. Challenges abounded in every way when it came to adjusting to life in Vicksburg — from finding a house to having to travel a bit for entertainment when he had his two children in town.

“Trying to make friends and getting that stability factor was tough,” Thompson said, stressing he had to adjust to a slower pace. “You have to get used to stores that don’t stay open as long.”

Thompson, 43, met his wife, Jessica, since he’s been here and has settled into a home life tucked away in Redwood with his son, Rory, 10, and daughter, Shelby, 7. Both play soccer and attend Redwood Elementary.

“The most positive thing happened the day I met my wife,” Thompson said, who says his journey might have simply been meant to be.

“Sometimes it takes something bad to happen to turn things around. I think I found a good thing here,” he said.

His job as a dual rate supervisor puts the gregarious Thompson right where he wants to be — in the middle of the action — but with a better view of people altogether.

“I still work with the public — just not on the bad side like before, when I was a cop,” said Thompson. “Having a stable family now makes life at work a lot easier. Whoever I have around me at work doesn’t matter. I just know we’re going to work and have a good time.”

‘I love the people here’

Cindy Major is at home behind the desk, whether it be managing an office for an architectural firm or helping clients with insurance.

Having any job after losing her eastern New Orleans home to Katrina was “job one” for the 52-year-old Uptown native who found her financial footing but still misses things back home in Louisiana — her mother and speckled trout.

“Getting this job was most important,” said Major, an associate at State Farm Insurance, under agent Donna Halford, since April 2006. “I didn’t know which way to turn.

“I love the people here and I’d love to get involved in the community outreach,” Major said.

She returns to south Louisiana every few weeks to visit her mother, Germaine Chenier, 78, of suburban River Ridge, and to find some fish that are tough to find outside of Louisiana waters.

“She’s the love of my life,” Major said. “Not seeing her is hard. And I like some speckled trout, not so much catfish.”

She’s bought a house in Vicksburg and leans on her friend and co-worker, Jana Persons, for directions in her adopted hometown.

“She really knows her way around Vicksburg!” Persons said. Major’s response was easy.

“I know my way home — that’s about it!”

‘A much more stable place for the future’

Eagle Lake was just another small town bound by a river when Kim and Steve Koppman found it online some time after Katrina.

“We started trying to find a stable place a couple of months after,” Kim said. “We fixed up our house and were able to sell quickly.”

They rode the storm out in Baton Rouge while Katrina was blowing the roof off their house. They returned to New Orleans two weeks later as Hurricane Rita approached.

“We decided to ride out Rita on a generator,” Kim said. “We put a blue tarp over our roof. At times we thought this wasn’t such a good idea.”

Though Rita’s strike zone wound up near Lake Charles, the destruction of the storms prompted the Koppmans to search for a new home.

They moved their business, River Road Jean Company, now re-branded as Grand River Clothing, to Eagle Lake, and since have grown large enough for the couple to move into a bigger warehouse at Sardis.

“Mississippi has been a great place to start over,” said Kim, a New Orleans native.

Family members remain in New Orleans, and Kim has kept a journal of newspaper clippings about the hurricane and its aftermath in the city.

“We wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for the storm,” Kim said. “Vicksburg is a much more stable place for the future.”

‘Looking for a safe house’

Glenn and Debbie LeCompte are from Houma, La. But since Katrina, Warren County has been their safe house.

They own a catering business that caters to oil rigs, so being located in Houma, where Glenn had lived all of his life, was a natural choice. Debbie was born and raised in Baton Rouge.

After riding out the hurricane in his office, Glenn saw firsthand the deadly force nature can bring. The next move for them was to look for a home where they can retreat when the next big storm hits the coast.

“We love the Gulf of Mexico and we didn’t want to move,” Glenn said. “But we weren’t going to risk our lives, so we started looking for a safe house.” The search landed them at Eagle Lake.

“It was far enough, but close enough to home,” he said.

The couple still operates their business in Houma, but spends about two weeks monthly at Eagle Lake. Since the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Glenn said the devastation helped business.

“There are about 30,000 to 40,000 people cleaning up and they all need to be fed,” he said.

But when the cleanup is done, he said he will be left with no one to feed.

While the catering business can be undetermined, he said he has another line of work in production.