The drive was just long enough for them to think about the images they had seen on CNN the day before—how bad would it be at home? They started seeing evidence of the storm just east of Baton Rouge—a billboard down, then a couple of trees. Things worsened as they crossed over the Chefuncte River and saw how the water level had risen into the first story of the houses that lined the river bank.

The Johnson’s home was far enough away from any sizable body of water to avoid flooding. But wind damage had ravaged their neighborhood, and not a single power line remained standing. Although they returned to find their house in one piece and their neighbors unharmed, they lost their sense of place indefinitely.“Even though my husband and I were extremely fortunate—we did not physically lose anything—the worst part of the storm was that it robbed us of our sense of security, our sense of safety, our sense of normalcy. Everything seemed surreal,” Chambers, a 2002 communication alum, said.

The Johnsons stayed with her husband Brian’s aunt and uncle at their horse farm just outside Lafayette while trying to regroup. Ultimately Brian ended up staying in their house in Covington, which was without electricity, and returning to his job at a car dealership there. Chambers, who is a media buyer, continued to stay with his relatives and went to work at her firm’s offices in Fayetteville and then later Baton Rouge. As welcoming as their relatives were to their long-term guests, Chambers felt restless. “When you go on vacation you’re out of your house for a week—that’s planned, that’s good,” Chambers said. “When you are forced out of your house for weeks at a time, whether you are or whether you are not, you feel like you are imposing on whomever you are staying with.”

Returning to work was also difficult, at best, for Chambers. When she called her boss to say she was okay, she was immediately called-in to work with nothing but her cell phone and the software on the computer to work with—no fax machines, no internet, no land lines. After two days of being the only one handling the company’s many advertising accounts, her media director was able to make it back to work, and Chambers took some much deserved time off.

“I never returned to my normal,” Chambers said. “I had to build a new normal.”

Her “new normal,” as it turned out. involved returning to Tennessee. Before moving to New Orleans, Chambers had worked at the Johnson Group, an advertising agency in Chattanooga. Prior to the storm, Chambers had casually emailed her old collegue there, Rachel Daigh. Daigh invited her up to interview for an open position, and although Chambers was happy with her current job, she decided to fly up and test her marketability.

Given the new circumstances, Chambers and her husband were left with a choice: rebuild what they had in Covington or start fresh elsewhere.

Ultimately the Johnson Group offered—and Chambers accepted—the job. She moved back to Chattanooga leaving her husband behind to sell their Covington home. After a month the house sold, and her husband was able to join Chambers in Chattanooga.

It is nearing a year since Katrina, and Chambers has settled into a new routine here in Chattanooga. And with that new routine, she has also found a sense of healing.

“Being able to leave New Orleans has been invaluable to my mental and emotional state,” she said.