Family Rebuilds After Devastating Losses

EL PASO, TX. — Members of one family who now call El Paso home have had a double dose of heartbreak over the past year as a result of severe weather.

Tammy Maddox and her family were forced out of their home in Slidell, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. The storm caused extensive damage to their house, and the Maddoxes chose to relocate to El Paso.

“We rented a U-Haul truck, and packed everything up,” Maddox said. “It’s a move we hadn’t planned to make.”

Much of what the family owned in Louisiana was lost to Katrina’s flooding. What they could salvage, the Maddoxes brought with them when they moved to El Paso. When they arrived, they put many of those precious belongings in storage at the U-Store storage facility on North Mesa.

But tragedy revisited the family when heavy rains flooded the storage facility in early August of this year. The property was severely damaged at the onset of El Paso’s destructive storms, as was several other businesses in the immediate area.

What was left of the family s possessions was scattered at the bottom of the arroyo behind the facility. “We were in shock, disbelief and we panicked,” Maddox said. “What do we do now?”

“I had treasure boxes of my kids, things that I kept from when they were born,” she said. “All this stuff can’t be replaced.”

Maddox told ABC 7 her friends are helping her family regain their footing by donating appliances and other necessities. Shealso saidwhat’s mosthelping her cope the most is her faith in God. “You can either let it knock you down or you just pick up and keep going,” she said.

Maddox estimates her family has lost 95 percent of their belongings over the past year.