Hurricane Katrina survivors Gerald and Genendal Fratantuono pose by a piano salvaged from their flooded home near Gulfport, Miss. The couple are moving from their current home in Brainerd back to coastal Mississippi.A Brainerd couple whose Gulf Coast home was inundated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is returning there after more than a decade.
Trapped in their home near the beach in Gulfport, Miss., Gerald and Genendal Fratantuono say the water got waist deep inside their house before their prayers were answered and the storm surge crested.
A grandfather clock in their Brainerd home still has a water mark about three feet off the floor, a grim reminder of the day that the sea almost swallowed their city.
Now, after more than a decade living here in Chattanooga, the Fratantuonos are returning to southern Mississippi because of family obligations, they say.
Gerald, a former Washington, D.C., police officer, and Genendal, a former pro-life prayer ministry leader and lobbyist in Washington, say they were living an idyllic retirement life in Gulfport in 2005 when Katrina slammed into the coast.