LONGMONT - It sounds odd, but Hurricane Katrina can make the Ellis family laugh now.

Don't get them wrong. It was tragic and sad, and they miss New Orleans terribly. But two years removed from fleeing the devastating hurricane that ravaged the Gulf Coast and the Crescent City has allowed them to tell stories that can invoke laughter now.

The Ellises are among about 1,600 Katrina evacuees who made their way to Colorado, according to the state Department of Local Affairs. In the Denver area, a makeshift shelter was created at abandoned dorms at the former Lowry Air Force Base. Churches and the Mile High Chapter of the American Red Cross provided thousands of meals for the bedraggled evacuees.

Estimates as to how many remain in the state are unknown as various agencies haven't kept track of those figures. The Ellis family represents former residents of coastal Louisiana who have adapted to Colorado but still hold on to the traditions and rituals of their former lives.

Southern humor

For them, almost nowhere could be farther from New Orleans than Longmont is. Thin air, snow and and no body of water to rival the Gulf of Mexico are daily reminders of how far from home they are and how long the journey was to get here - all 17 of them. And each, using Southern storytelling and exaggerated humor, remember it vividly.

Take Tim Ellis and his attempt to leave his house as the storm was bearing down.

The 42-year-old boarded up the windows. He gathered personal belongings. He wrapped the computer in plastic and put it on a high shelf.

And then, for his 5-year-old son Ben, he gathered the two pet birds, the two fighting fish in separate bowls and the family dog.

"I had a picture of my mom and dad in my hands just before I left the house, and I dropped it," Ellis said. "I shed a few more tears and picked it up. And in the back of my head, I could hear my mom's voice saying, 'Get the hell out of there.' "

As he locked the door and turned around, a police officer with a bullhorn was looking right at him.

"There's a Category 5 storm coming, and there are no shelters," the officer said gravely through the tinny speaker. "You need to leave."

As Ellis tells the story at his photo studio in Longmont, his brother-in-law interjects.

"You were like Dr. Doolittle," Lance Thorne, 34, said. "Birds, fish, dog - and they're talking to you saying, 'Let's get going already.' "

Eight family members roar with laughter. Ellis is smiling as he recounts how he finally drives away - only to get stuck with all the animals on the highway that is loaded with so many cars, nobody is moving.

"Ever been stuck in a car full of animals?" he asks, smiling. "It took me 14 long hours to get to Jasper."

The whole family is laughing again.

His younger sister, Dena Ellis, talks about leaving New Orleans in her car with a dog and a cat jumping around when her tires caught some sand on the side of the road.

The car flipped. And flipped again. The animals tumbled around. And when they all got out, the only damage was a wrist injury. But she was in Texas, holding a dog and cat under each arm by the side of the road trying to figure out what else could possibly go wrong.

"I must've looked so sad standing there," the 36-year-old said, incurring more laughter from everyone.

Where's home?

Sitting on the couch in the studio, Ellis' mother-in-law, Karen Thorne, wonders how they all made it.

Tim Ellis established the portrait studio just off of Main Street. The name of the business, French Quarter Studio and Gallery, is stenciled in the glass - complete with a fleur de lis.

Ellis said the family used almost every penny of savings and money from the sale of their house in New Orleans to speculators to support the three children and start the business.

Inside his studio, the walls are bright, and a gallery of his post- Katrina photos hang on the wall. They are grim reminders of what was left behind - crooked, crumbling houses spray-painted with messages warning looters to stay away or phone numbers of where loved ones can be reached.

The studio is cluttered with cameras, lights, backdrops. He's kept busy, but money is tight. He has no health insurance because he's self-employed. They have no savings and no ability to take any kind of vacation. And his wife, Kristin Ellis, is expecting their fourth child at the end of October.

Her mother, Karen Thorne, said the baby - a boy - will be the first Thorne born outside of New Orleans since the family settled there in the 1700s. It's a shocking turn for a family that lived within blocks of each other their entire lives.

"Oh my, that's right," Thorne said. "Isn't that something?"

It also gets them thinking about where home is.

Lance Thorne, Tim Ellis' brother-in-law, who used to work at Harrah's Casino in New Orleans, still doesn't think of Longmont as home - though he is settled here. He still carries his Harrah's employee card in his wallet, even though he now works part time in Loveland at his brother's restaurant - the family connection that brought them all here.

"It feels like I'm on vacation or something," he said. "It's weird."

Dena Ellis feels the same way. She hung onto her Louisiana driver's license and said she felt guilty about not going back to New Orleans when the city's mayor, Ray Nagin, urged residents to return and help rebuild.

"I felt like I had abandoned the area," she said.

But when Dena Ellis fled the hurricane, it was the first time she left the city thinking she might never be back.

"I remember packing and thinking that if I don't come back, what kind of clothes will I need to have for a job interview," she said. "I'd never thought like that before."

And then there's food . . .

Make no mistake - the Thorne and Ellis families like Colorado. Even the snow. But they inject as much of their hometown as possible here.

This past Easter, they shipped 100 pounds of live crawfish from New Orleans to Longmont - $6 for the crawfish and $50 for shipping - and ate it in the backyard with a layer of snow on the ground.

"And we ate every last bit of it," Karen Thorne said proudly. "Nothing was left."

Once the topic of food comes up, the family can roll. It's the language of New Orleans - Cajun spices, filé-based gumbo and red beans and rice. They all speak it fluently.

They don't want to complain because they're so grateful for the kindness people have shown them since moving to Colorado, but the selection of restaurants is no match for where they're from. They do a lot of their own cooking - reminding their taste buds of what was once home.

The conversation always seems to drift back to that topic - home.

Karen Thorne's husband, Lester, is trying to repair their house in New Orleans. They finally got federal grant money to start the work. She talks to Lester by phone a lot. One of them will say "Are you coming home?" And the answer usually always comes back as, "Which home? New Orleans or Longmont?"

Thorne said as a part of the rules of the federal grant, they have to live in their reconstructed home for three years before they can move out of it. She said they plan to do that, then settle in Longmont to be close to the grandchildren.

With the arrival of a grandchild and the presence of all of her children in Longmont, home is slowly being defined as where her family is - not was.

"I'll always be from New Orleans," she said. "But you know, parents follow their kids and where they are is where you are."

It's just they've never had to follow them this far before.

monterod@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5236

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