In this eighth installment, seven people decide to ride out Katrina in a historic building on the beachfront - one that had survived a century of violent hurricanes.
- by Ellis Anderson The next installment of the award-winning book that follows Bay St. Louis through the very heart of Hurricane Katrina – and three years of grinding aftermath. The Shoofly Magazine is publishing one excerpt from the book each week through the storm's 20th anniversary on August 29. 
The historic beachfront bed and breakfast where seven people fought for their lives when it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina Photo courtesy Nikki Moon
Then in late October 2005, Nikki Nicholson, owner of the inn and one of the survivors, asked me if I’d write up an account of the story.
All seven of the people who chose to stay in the Inn are my friends and neighbors. I don’t need a writer’s imagination to fill in the details – I’m simply recording their story, interweaving five of the individual accounts. Two survivors declined to be interviewed. I’ve changed their names to Kay and Pete Stevens to respect their privacy. The experience of this group is riveting because they barely escaped with their lives. Yet they overcame what must have been an imperative to panic and took care of each other, offering what they could despite their personal peril. While this account may be extraordinary, it’s not unusual – I’ve heard dozens of others that are similar. It’s actually a typical example of the way people on the coast helped others—both during and after the storm. This is the story of Bay Town Inn, but it’s also the story of our town. 
Nikki Nicholson Moon, Ellis Anderson, Doug Niolet and Kevan Guillory in October 2005, as Ellis interviews them for this account. The Stamms were also interviewed at length by phone as they had moved to Louisiana by that time. Photo by Joe Tomasovsky
Monday, August 29, 2005
Nikki Nicholson straddled the oak branch, lying face down and hugging it with all her might. Her small dog, Maddy, was tucked beneath her stomach like a baby. She pressed the dog closer to her, wondering how they’d possibly survive. Each wave that washed over the tree threatened to tear them from the limb and drag them into the seething surge. Nikki had always figured she’d be killed in a plane crash. Now, it looked like all those hours of airport anxiety had been wasted. In a bizarre twist of fate, she was caught in a tree, facing death by hurricane. It seemed like a very strange way to die. Doug Niolet reached up from his perch on the branch below and held onto Nikki’s boots for dear life. As a professional Hurricane Hunter, he’d piloted a plane through the eye of the storm forty-eight hours before. Now, he was in the center of Katrina again, hoping his branch wouldn’t break. Doug wasn’t sure he was going to die, but he wasn’t sure he’d make it, either. He’d seen the others disappear. After the Bay Town Inn disintegrated around them, the seven friends had been forced into the fury of the storm. In the chaos, they’d been separated. Three of them made it to a large oak. The other four had vanished. Doug had watched in horror as Kay Stevens was pulled under the Gulf’s raging waters. She didn’t resurface. Her husband, Pete, had made it to a cluster of smaller trees nearby, but soon after he’d disappeared as well. The elders of the group, Dick and Nadine Stamm, had floated away together on a small section of roof. They’d actually waved good-bye as they sailed past on the makeshift raft. Doug waved back and started praying the rosary. It had been his grandmother’s favorite prayer. Kevan Guillory had been the last person to make it to the tree. His branch faced the Gulf, so he’d warn Nikki and Doug when a breaker was about to hit. The three friends were trapped for the duration—they couldn’t go higher and they couldn’t go down. Whenever the sea slammed into them, Kevan would bury his face in the resurrection ferns that grew on the branch and ask himself one question: “What in the cornbread hell led us to this?” Nikki and Kevan became worldwide celebrities the day after the storm when CNN repeatedly aired a short interview with them. But the network missed the best parts of the story. Exactly who are these people? What kept them all from panicking in the worst of circumstances? And the question that Kevan asked of himself is one of the most compelling: What led seven mature, intelligent people to ride out the storm in a beachfront bed-and-breakfast? 
Nikki at the site of the Bay Town Inn post-Katrina. Photo by Joe Tomasovsky. Note that the railroad bridge in the background had been rebuilt.
Sunday, August 28, 2005 As with most Katrina stories, this one begins with Camille. Thirty-five years before, the “storm of the century” had charged directly into Bay St. Louis with a twenty-seven-foot tidal wave and gusts of over two hundred miles an hour. Heeding evacuation warnings, Dick and Nadine Stamm left their home in the lower elevation Cedar Point neighborhood. They took refuge in the Second Street Elementary School. The school was only a block from the beach, but it’d been built on the “bluff” of Old Town – some of the highest ground bordering the Gulf of Mexico. It was a good decision. The Stamms’ own house on Cedar Point flooded, but the couple weathered Camille at the school with no problems. When the storm relented at daybreak, Dick walked to his boss’s house, which faced the beach. He found his employer, wife, and three children unharmed, their stately historic home high and dry. The monster storm had broken only a few windows of the sturdy building. This was the house that would later become Bay Town Inn. This was a house the Stamms thought they could count on. Decades later, when Katrina took aim for the Bay, the Stamms again considered their options. Nadine was now in her late seventies, and Dick was eighty-one. Although they were both active and vital, they were concerned about attempting the drive to their daughter’s house a hundred miles north. News reports warned of impossibly clogged highways. The Stamms debated and then called their friend Nikki Nicholson, owner of the Bay Town Inn. Nikki assured them of a warm welcome at the bed-and-breakfast. The last of her paying guests departed Sunday morning, so she had plenty of room. They’d all be very comfortable, even if they lost electricity. Nikki had no qualms about staying in her house or in sheltering others for the storm. She’d purchased the Bay Town Inn three years before from Ann Tidwell, Doug’s mother-in-law. Nikki knew the house was a Camille veteran, but she also understood the principles of structural integrity. Built in 1899, the Inn had been constructed to withstand storms from the Gulf. Large beams ran the length of the building – it was solid as a rock. They don’t make houses like that anymore.
So when Pete and Kay Stevens called, she didn’t hesitate to offer them refuge as well. Kay’s an artist who worked part-time at the Inn. The Stevenses’ house was located a few miles west of Bay St. Louis in Waveland.
Although their home was well back from the water, Kay wanted to be on the safe side and move to higher ground. Since their large dog limited evacuation options, the Bay Town Inn seemed the perfect solution. The chain of events that led Doug Niolet to stay began three days before the storm. When he reported to work at Keesler Air Force Base on Friday, August 26, he wasn’t slated to fly; however, the scheduled pilot couldn’t take the nighttime mission, so Doug volunteered. For six hours, he flew in and out of Katrina’s eye. When he entered the hurricane, it had just passed over Florida and had weakened to a Category 1. By the time he headed back to Keesler early Saturday morning, the storm had intensified to a Category 3. Saturday afternoon, Doug was back in the Bay boarding up his various properties. His old friend and partner, Kevan, worked alongside. The two men moved around town, securing doors, screwing plywood over win- dows, stacking sandbags where heavy rains might cause drainage prob- lems. At one point, Kevan asked Doug’s opinion of the storm. “Well,” Doug said. “It’s not the worst storm I’ve ever flown into, but somebody’s world will never be the same.” He didn’t realize he was talking about his own. Doug finally slept Saturday night, assuming he’d be flying again the next morning. But by Sunday, the base had decided to move operations to Houston. Relieved of work obligations, Doug was inclined to stay through the storm. He’d be able to help Kevan with final preparations and then get a jump start on the cleanup afterward. At the same time, he was uncomfortable with the thought of his wife, Vicki, remaining with him. He urged her to evacuate. Vicki wasn’t really worried about her husband’s safety if he chose to stay – several times a year, he was required to attend survival training exercises – but she wasn’t as confident with her own emergency skills. She and her mother, Ann, packed and headed for Jackson early that afternoon. Doug and Kevan spent the rest of the day boarding up several buildings and houses, including the Bay Town Inn. They were old hands at the procedure, and by the end of the day they’d completed most of their goals. They still had a punch list of last-minute tasks, but since the storm wasn’t predicted to hit until late Monday morning, they figured they’d have time the next day. The group of seven gathered at the Inn. Kevan, a native Cajun and an excellent cook, baked a crawfish pie for dinner. After the meal, they retired early. Pete and Kay slept in the small guest cottage directly behind the main house. Kevan went next door to keep watch on Ann Tidwell’s building at 200 Beach, a solid brick structure that had also made it through Camille unharmed. He moved into the second floor for the night. Doug had originally planned on staying at the Lumberyard, the Niolets’ arts center nearby, but in the end, he decided that the Stamms and Nikki might appreciate some extra moral support. The die was cast. Doug, Nadine and Dick Stamm, and Nikki took rooms on the first floor of the Inn. The seven friends had made a seemingly simple decision without any suspicion that their lives would soon be in peril. 
This pre-Katrina photograph shows the Dock of the Bay (brown roof with deck) on a the beachfront. 200 North Beach, where Kevan stayed the night is to the right of the old theatre. Next door, partially hidden by trees, is the Bay Town Inn. Photo courtesy Jerry Fisher
August 29, 2005 When Nikki got up at three in the morning, she found Doug listening to storm reports on the television. The hurricane had moved faster than expected; already wind and rain pummeled the house. She made a pot of coffee for him and then headed back to bed, her Scottish terrier, Maddy, trotting dutifully behind. Doug eventually returned to his room as well but was too disturbed to sleep. Forecasters still predicted surges to peak at eighteen to twenty feet, yet one announcer had made a comment that kept replaying in his head: no one really knew for sure. Doug lay in bed wondering if it was too late to leave. He tried to reassure himself that no matter what happened, the building would still be standing after the storm. The house sat on land that was over twenty-five feet above sea level. It’d been built an additional five feet off the ground. Even if the surge rose to an unheard-of thirty feet, the house wouldn’t flood. It hadn’t in 1969. And this storm would never match the ferocity of Camille.
At five in the morning, Doug gave up on sleep. Nikki joined him in the kitchen for coffee. The pot she’d made earlier was still warm, although they’d lost electricity an hour or so before.
Frustrated that the television didn’t work, Doug remembered a battery-operated TV that he had at the Lumberyard Arts Center, four blocks away. He decided to get it and called on Kevan to ride shotgun. His friend grumbled at being roused so early, but agreed it might be a good idea to travel in as a team. The Stamms were still sleeping, and since Nikki was reluctant to be left without company, she joined the men for the expedition. She kept her notepad in hand as they climbed into Doug’s truck, determined to keep a thorough record of events. They drove along the beach road, which was built a good twenty feet above sea level. Water lapped across the top of the pavement, so the three assumed they were seeing the peak of the predicted surge. Power wires flailed like streamers in the wind, tree branches tumbled across their path. Turning onto Main Street, Doug answered a phone call. It was his daughter, Courtney, demanding to know where he was. Doug answered as a nearby building blew away. “Whoa!” he said. “Look at that roof going off!” Courtney was livid when she realized her father was still in the Bay. She began shouting at him, “Dad, you’re not qualified to hunt hurricanes on the ground!”
Doug tried to reassure her and signed off. He continued slowly down the treacherous roads. It took the group almost thirty minutes to retrieve
the television, but they made it back to the bed-and-breakfast without mishap. Kevan returned to his post next door, while Doug tried to get more news. It had been a wasted trip. The battery TV worked, but stations were no longer broadcasting. In a last-ditch attempt for information, he called his headquarters in Houston to ask when the eye of the storm would pass. The mission commander, Roger, was incredulous to hear that Doug was still in the Bay and asked his exact location. The answer turned out to be another inadvertent prophecy. “Why, we’re diving off the first floor of the bed-and-breakfast,” Doug cracked. “And we’re getting ready to go up to the second floor and do high dives.” Roger wasn’t amused, but promised to call back shortly with the information.
About seven o’clock, conditions began to deteriorate rapidly. The wind peeled plywood away from some of the windows and rain started pushing beneath the exterior doors.
Doug called Kevan and asked for help at the Inn. He also tried calling his commander back for the all-important location of the eye. There was no answer. His cell phone wasn’t getting through. To get back to the Inn, Kevan had to wade across a lawn now covered with ankle-deep water. Several times he had to stop and crouch down. The thundering gusts threatened to carry him off. Directly across the street, he saw that the Dock of the Bay, a popular restaurant built on the bluff overlooking the beach, was beginning to show signs of defeat. Bit by bit, the building was being dismembered by the wind. 
The Dock of the Bay and the BSL waterfront pre-Katrina. 200 North Beach is on the far right. The Bay Town Inn is just out of the frame on the right. Photo courtesy Jerry Fisher
Dock of the Bay was set on the beach bluff across from Bay Town Inn. It was co-owned by Jerry and Melva Fisher. Photo of Jerry Fisher in front of the DOB courtesy Pat Murphy. Click on the photo to read Pat's story about it in our archives.
Once inside the Inn, Kevan helped the others take emergency measures. The group built a “nest” in the most sheltered part of the building, a nook in the center of the house, behind the massive staircase on the first floor. They furnished it with blankets and pillows, flashlights and water. Everyone sealed their most valuable belongings—wallets, laptops, personal papers—into plastic bags and piled them in the nest. Nikki even protected her current needlepoint project. Her last contact with the outside world for the next twenty-four hours came when she answered a phone call from a friend at about 8:00 a.m. As Nikki talked, she looked out the back windows and noticed the water rising on her patio. When her friend asked if the worst had passed, she saw her grill begin to float. “I don’t think so,” she said. At 8:30, the Stamms took a coffee break and sat at the kitchen table. They were calm – in fact, according to Dick, “dumb and happy.” Through the windows, they could see DeMontluzin Street, which ran along one side of the house. It was quickly becoming a river. Suddenly, they saw their car cruise by, floating away down the street. Kay’s car had been parked in front of the guest cottage. Now it butted against the walls of the small house repeatedly, riding a rising surf. The headlights flashed as the car alarm signaled an emergency. Nadine retreated to the nest and took over the job of news gatherer. She pressed the portable radio to her ear and searched the airwaves with quiet composure. Dick went into the dining room off the kitchen to check for leaks. A renegade gust of wind broke a window, blasted through the house and slammed the door behind him. When he struggled to open it, the air pressure in the house worked against him. The rest of the group came to his rescue. Together, they were able to force back one of the giant pocket doors leading from the dining room to the hallway and finally release Dick. The guest cottage in the back had its own problems. It had been built at ground level. When the water first started slipping under the doors, the Stevenses decided to make for the main house. Together, they struggled across the patio in chest-high water, important papers held high. Kay managed to somehow hang on to her dog’s leash as he swam. They burst in through the kitchen door of the house, grateful to have reached refuge. But the air pressure was still playing tricks. When the back door opened, the tremendous suction broke open the massive front door, which had been boarded over. Doug and Kevan raced to wrestle it back into submission. They used a portable drill to screw the door shut. While the Stevenses dried off in the kitchen, the rest of the team worked furiously as the storm found new ways to breach the walls. Dick barricaded off the laundry room, which had lost part of the roof. Nadine reluctantly made the sad report that the storm was intensifying, while Doug wedged various utensils against the kitchen windows to keep them shut.
Kevan and Nikki decided to check on the second floor. Upstairs, rain was being forced through the windows, so the two grabbed some towels. When they tried to secure one window, glass exploded into the room. Shards sliced into Kevan’s chin and foot.
They gave up and pushed a heavy armoire in front of the opening. Nikki found some hydrogen peroxide to put on Kevan’s cuts, and they joined the others on the first floor. Downstairs a new battle was being waged to fortify the front door. The water now swamped two feet over the level of the porch, and waves beat furiously against the house. The men used a shutter from an upstairs closet to wedge against the door, then overturned a table and braced it against the shutter. To complete the emergency barricade, they jammed a cutting board between the table and the foot of the stairs. In the end, they had a contraption that exerted considerable force against the door. Kevan became the official lookout. The enormous front and side windows of the house had been boarded over, but the plywood left a small gap at the top. He dragged a stool around the rooms, standing on it to peek over the boards. After looking through one of the front windows, he quietly called Doug over to him. “Don’t say anything to the others,” he said. “But you’ve got to see this. The Dock of the Bay is in the front yard.”
Next Installment: Room Number Five
Doug peered out the window, straining to see through the sheets of rain. The building across the street had vanished. Large sections of the restaurant churned in the water covering the front yard. Frenzied waves drove the debris against the foundations of the Bay Town Inn, shak- ing the house with every slam of the surge. Kevan and Doug announced it was time to move the nest to the second floor. Room number five was the obvious choice. It was centered in the back of the house, directly at the top of the stairs. The room was flanked on one side by a walk-in closet and on the other by a bath. The group began hauling their possessions and supplies up the stairs. to be continued...
The Shoofly Magazine is publishing 12 of Under Surge's 25 chapters to commemorate Katrina's 20th anniversary.
Missed some? Below are links to those we've published to date: 
Under Surge, Under Siege is available in paperback and as an ebook.
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