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Date Posted: 15:20:36 10/04/05 Tue
Author: Marv
Subject: Darrell's Dream

Almost nothing left but their dream

By Rick Cleveland
rcleveland@clarionledger.com

Brian Albert Broom/The Clarion-Ledger

Laurie Alley of Bay St. Louis talks about losing her home to Hurricane Katrina, then her husband to an accident. Despite all the trials, Alley says she is determined to stay in the area and to fulfill her husband's ambition of opening a restaurant. "It was his dream, and somehow, some way I'm going to make it happen."

BAY ST. LOUIS — Their restaurant was going to be called D & L's — "D" for Darrell and "L" for Laurie.

Darrell and Laurie Alley had long dreamed of operating their own cafe, specializing in po' boys. It was to have opened Sept. 1.

Hurricane Katrina changed all that Aug. 29, just as it has changed the lives of so many tens of thousands in this part of the world. Know this: Few lives, if any, can possibly have changed so drastically as 36-year-old Laurie Alley's. She lost her home and her restaurant. And then, when she thought she had lost everything, she lost her husband.

"By the grace of God, I just keep going," Laurie Alley says. "I'm not leaving. Here is where I want to be."

"Here" is a tent just west of Bay St. Louis that stands a few feet from what remains of the mobile home where she and Darrell Alley lived with their two daughters, 9-year-old Leslie and 7-year-old Kimberly.

Laurie and Darrell Alley

The Alley family rode out Katrina with family at a home in nearby Diamondhead. It was three days later before they could get back through the downed trees and other debris to find their property, wrecked by both the winds and the storm surge. Their long-dreamed-of restaurant on nearby Mississippi 603 was destroyed as well.

All their savings had gone into the restaurant. They had next to nothing.

So Darrell Alley sent his wife and daughters to Pensacola to live with family while he stayed behind to salvage what was left of their property. He took a job with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a safety coordinator, making $12 an hour.

The plan was for Laurie Alley and the girls to live in Pensacola until he could bring them back to something resembling a home. Fearing their stay might be a long one, Laurie Alley enrolled the girls in school in Pensacola and took a job as a shift manager at a Burger King. But Darrell Alley, who missed them all terribly, had other plans. He applied with FEMA for temporary housing so he could bring his family home.

When Darrell Alley learned his property would have to be cleared of all downed and damaged trees before he could get a FEMA mobile home, he went to work. He restored an old chain saw that had been rusted in the storm and set out to clear it alone.

Brian Albert Broom/The Clarion-Ledger

After losing her home and then her husband following Hurricane Katrina, Laurie Alley lives in a tent with only a generator. She expects to receive a mobile home from FEMA soon.

"We went a day without hearing from him, which was very unusual," Laurie Alley says. "My girls and I kept calling and leaving messages, but we got no calls. Obviously, I got concerned."

Darrell Alley's brother, Dennis, found him underneath a huge, fallen pine tree on Sept. 26. The coroner later told Laurie Alley her husband had died instantly. She worries and frets that he did not.

Making it happen

Laurie Alley, who suffers from chronic asthma, wears a T-shirt she found at a Red Cross center. Across the front, it reads, "Give me one good reason to smile."

"When I saw it, I had to have it; I said this T-shirt is made for me," she says, managing a smile, albeit a tired one.

Darrell Alley had received a $2,000 emergency funds check from FEMA and had put it aside to help set up house when he brought his family home. Laurie Alley cashed it last week and used it to pay for his funeral Thursday.

Brian Albert Broom/The Clarion-Ledger

A makeshift memorial marks the area where Darrell alley was killed while clearing trees on his property on Sept. 26. A cross has been carved into the stump of the tree that killed him.

Her girls have gone to stay with family in Tennessee for a few days. Laurie Alley has stayed behind. She won't leave her property because she worries about looters. She has been told she might have that FEMA mobile home as early as this Friday. She has to be there when it comes.

She shows a visitor a humble memorial the family has made on the ground where her husband died. There's an American flag and some religious icons bordered by stones and cinder blocks. A cross has been cut into the stump of the tree that killed him. Darrell Alley was a devout Catholic.

"Darrell was a good man, a really good father to our girls," Laurie Alley says. "He was a big, friendly guy who loved to eat and he loved to cook. That's why we were doing the restaurant. He had always wanted his own place to cook and feed people.

"It was his dream, and somehow, some way I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to open that restaurant, and I'm changing the name. It won't be D & L's.

"I'm going to call it Darrell's Dream."

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