Reggie Simmons has 50 family members, spanning three generations, who were forced to leave their homes in Louisiana during the disaster. The hurricane left their four homes underwater. Everything was lost, family members say.

"We had many generations who lived in Gentilly," Simmons says. Gentilly is right outside the downtown area of New Orleans.

"They are still unaware of the extent of damage to the city that Katrina has left behind," Simmons says.

"Years of mementos that were handed down from generation to generation are all gone," he says. "Just trying to grasp the concept of such a loss is difficult."

As the hurricane approached, this large Louisiana family had to decide on a course of action.

"When the evacuations began, shelters and buses were taking women and children first, so then families were separated and they went to the shelters and it was a big mess," says Ameerah Simmons, Reggie's sister. "I was waiting to know what my mother was going to do but my mother was waiting on her sisters."

She says as a result, there were 50 family members having to make a fast decision at the last minute.

"This is what happened to many families; they didn't want to get separated so they stayed in their attics," she says.

Although some of her family did to evacuate during the initial hurricane warnings, going to relatives in Texas, the rest had to make other plans. That part of the family, including Reggie's mother Shirley Williams, his sister, her sons Tyler and Christian Kennard and two aunts, Linda and Maxie Williams, ended up taking a charter bus to Texas.

Ameerah Simmons, who works in the hotel industry, says during previous hurricanes if she was working on the day of the storm, the hotel would let her bring her family to stay at no cost. But this year, the storm hit during the weekend and she wasn't working.

"We couldn't go to the hotel so we had to take a bus out," she says. "We had thought about staying on the second floor of our house but everyone in the neighborhood left. It gave us an eerie feeling."

Outracing Katrina

The bus ride from Gentilly to Baton Rouge, normally a 45-minute ride, took seven hours, Simmons says.

"We literally inched our way along. Many people ran out of gas," she says. "Gas stations ran out of gas as well so there were many people who were stuck. The storm was heading our way and we were getting nowhere, so instead of trying to get to Texas, the bus swung the other way and headed into Mississippi."

Then bus had mechanical difficulties in Mississippi and they were forced to stay in the town of Woodville.

"It was so crowded, " she says. "There were 25 adults and 30 kids sleeping on the bus," Simmons says.

The family was stuck in Woodville for 48 hours, until the Federal Emergency Management Agency arrived and transported the family to yet another location, a shelter in Smackover, Ark.

Throughout the ordeal communication was touch-and-go for Reggie Simmons and his Louisiana family.

"All contact was lost with them," he says. "There were a few days where I didn't hear anything from them. Cell phones were the only way to get ahold of them and the connection was bad."

The families' cell phone batteries could not recharge without electricity.

Knowing his family was stranded in an unfamiliar place, he was anxious to get them to the Bay Area. Simmons was able to raise enough money through his own family so his sister, her children, his mother and two aunts could purchas train tickets to Southern California and then bus tickets from there to San Jose.

The family arrived on Sept. 11.

As they got off the bus, there was a combination of smiles and laughter, silence and tears, joyful embraces and toothy grins.

But their sorrowful eyes silently told the story as the family looked over their luggage--the only things they have left.

"The most important thing right now is to have stability in their lives, making the transition as easy as possible," Reggie Simmons says.

New beginnings

Simmons' Willow Glen church--Church of God in San Jose--immediately put out the welcome mat.

"The contribution and prayers, the community response from the church was amazing," he says. "The people of the Bay Area had this heavy weight dropped on their shoulders and they came together."

Along with the clothes and blankets donated to the Simmons family by the shelters along the way, the Church of God of San Jose raised $5,000 for the family, a private resident donated bunk beds and a business owner donated a car.

Rose Garden resident Rich Amooi is a friend of Simmons who wanted to help.

"It was quite a surprise to me," Amooi says. "A week ago, Reggie sent out an email to his friends about his family being stuck in Mississippi and that donations to the Church of God in his name would be much appreciated."

Amooi says he was thinking of additional ways he could help the Simmons family. He found out there where two boys coming and they needed a place to sleep.

"I told Reggie that they needed bunk beds and that I had it covered," Amooi says. He bought them within the hour and had them delivered the next day.

"I was so excited that I could help," he says. "So I also asked him what else he needed and we started talking about how his sister would need a car to get to and fro. But Reggie said that he was working on it."

Amooi made a phone call to his friend Greg Tomassian.

Tomassian, a longtime Willow Glen resident and owner of Cash for Cars, 1800 W. San Carlos St., says he shed a few tears for the Simmons family.

"Rich called me and said he wanted to purchase a trade-in for a family we knew who lost everything to Katrina," he says. "But I wanted to get involved and have a direct connection with this disaster and saw this as a great opportunity."

Like Amooi, Tomassian asked Simmons what his family would be using the car for and found out that it would be used by Ameerah Simmons to go to work or school and that she had two young boys.

"So I thought they were going to need a larger sedan," Tomassian says.

He donated a 1997 Ford Taurus to the family.

"It felt really good and I know it went to the right people, to the right cause," he says. "With what this family went through, it's not only my pleasure but my obligation."

"I was so surprised with the car," Ameerah Simmons says. "My car is somewhere in Gentilly floating."

On the family's first Friday in San Jose, an anonymous donor left more than two dozen bags of groceries on the Simmonses' doorstep.

"They didn't leave a note or anything but we made a thank-you note and stuck it on the window, in case it was a neighbor," she says.

One step forward

With the future back home still uncertain, Ameerah Simmons, her children and his mother are planning to live with Reggie Simmons in his Almaden Valley home.

Ameerah Simmons, who is 28, enrolled at San José State University and was able to transfer her units and financial aid from the University of New Orleans without having to wait.

"I'm a sophomore majoring in early childhood education and was afraid I wouldn't be able to go to school for the rest of the semester," she says. "But all my units transferred without a problem and I got my books for my classes, the same classes I was taking in Louisiana, the same day."

She says her teachers are giving her time to catch up.

"It's been better than I thought it would be," she says. "I just wanted to get back to a routine."

Before the hurricane hit, Simmons wanted to start her own daycare center.

"I had even begun to buy items for the center as a motivation," she says. "But everything is underwater now."

Simmons says for now, she's dedicating herself to her education and children.

"Back home, I had to work on top of the financial aid to help support my family," she says. "But now, I have Reggie for help and I can dedicate myself to school."

Her children are also getting back to normal. Five-year-old Tyler Simmons will attend Allen at Steinbeck School. She is still looking for daycare for 2-year-old Christian.

"It's been a learning experience," says Shirley Williams. "We're just taking it one day at a time."

Williams says she doesn't have many regrets except for insufficient packing.

"My daughter packed her paperwork as well as clothes and supplies, I just grabbed two sets of clothes because I thought we'd only be gone a couple of days."

As the family reflects on the disaster, Ameerah Simmons says she's tried to digest the extent of the damage left by the hurricane.

"I tried to watch the news, but I ended up turning it off," she says. "I finally picked up a copy of Time Magazine and just looked at the pictures of the bodies floating in the water. I had to put it down.

"People just weren't prepared."