The Johnsons are happy, tossing a football in their front yard and laughing on a Saturday afternoon.
Coty Johnson and his wife Chasity Johnson bought their house in 2012, and they've lived in Indiana for almost a decade now. But it's difficult to call this home.
"Even now when I say I live in Indiana, that sounds funny coming out of my mouth," Chasity says.
Born and raised in New Orleans, she and her husband never considered leaving. Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras, spicy Cajun food and zydeco music – that was life.
As she sits on her couch, Chasity lays out about a dozen pictures from her life in New Orleans. It's nearly all she has left.
"That's 2004, right after the birth of my son, and that's the house we lived in," she points out in the pictures.
She couldn't imagine what would come next--a powerful storm that would separate her from her infant son for months.
"I really never talk about it. Some things you just don't want to talk about."
"Growing up we were always taught New Orleans is below sea level, and we were never going to be able to survive anything over a Category 3 hurricane," Chasity recalls.
On August 29, a powerful Category 5 hurricane barreled down on the city of New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.
"I really never talk about it," Chasity reflects. "Some things you just don't want to talk about, so some things I kind of forgot about until now. You kind of have a mental block – try to block things out of your head."
Coty went with his family and the couple's infant son. Chasity got lost in the confusion as folks lined up to find shelter.
She and a friend realized they needed to get out of the city. They siphoned gas out of abandoned cars and made their way to Baton Rouge where she sheltered at an old military base for three months.
"Three months doesn't seem like a long time, but when you have a 3-month-old baby, it is a huge time," Chasity says.
Finally, Chasity, Coty and their infant son reconnected.
"When I had him he was barely trying to stand up and when I saw him he was walking so it was just some things I missed like his first steps or his first word those sort of things," she said. "It was just crazy."
Buses would come by the shelter offering to take people to different states to come live rent-free for a few months while they got back on their feet. Chasity and Coty watched as evacuees boarded buses to Ohio and Kentucky.
Then, one day, a bus came to take people to Indiana.
"I was laying on the cot and he said do you want to go to Indiana? Indiana's coming. I was like, 'let's go to Indiana.' I was just ready to go so when they showed us the apartment, all I was thinking was I get to take a bath so we got on the bus and left," she says.
Coty says he knew it was going to be a major change.
"I didn't know nobody in Indiana," he says. "I didn't know nothing about Indiana except the Indy 500 and the Colts. That was it. That was all I knew, but I was just tired of being in that environment."
Their families were initially skeptical of their decision, but the couple pursued the plan.
"I remember I called my daddy, and I said, 'Daddy I'm moving to Indiana.' And he said 'Indiana? Where is that?' I said, 'I don't know. It's a few states up,'" Chastity says.
Thousands Of Refugees Flee To Indiana
Katrina refugees started arriving in Indiana a couple days after the storm.
At the American Red Cross facility in Indianapolis, hundreds of people filled the courtyard and the hallways.
"We had chairs lining up all the way up and down the halls," says Ann Gregson, who helped coordinate relief efforts for the Red Cross during Katrina.
Gregson says it was like nothing the Red Cross had ever dealt with.
Typically the Red Cross will raise money or send volunteers to a devastated area. In this case there were thousands of displaced people who weren't from Indiana, had no connection to Indiana, but they needed help.
"You're walking down the hall and you're meeting people from New Orleans, all sorts of places. Just being empathetic to them in this situation and fleeing their homes and needing somebody to be there for them," Gregson says.
Hundreds of Indiana residents turned out to help, and some refugees started volunteering, even as they were handling their own situations.
The Hicks Family: The Sense Of Loss Hasn't Disappeared
Larcina Hicks and her family had recently evacuated to Indianapolis when she started working at Volunteers of America.
"We were going through the process of rebuilding and trying to figure out our next steps while I was helping someone else in the same situation," Hicks says. "It was a crazy time."
But it helped Hicks deal with a hundred different emotions by being around people who were in the same situation.
All told the Indiana Red Cross helped more than 3,000 Katrina refugees. In the majority of cases, it was temporary assistance until people could get back on their feet and figure out what to do next.
Finding A New Home
Today, ten years after the storm, the Red Cross doesn't know how many New Orleans transplants are still here, but Ann Gregson estimates it's just a handful.
The Johnsons have a mortgage here now and Chasity's mom moved up from New Orleans earlier this year.
When they retire they'll likely move south, but probably not back to the Crescent City.
"Some things have gotten up and running but I don't think it will ever feel like home like it used to," she says.
