A year ago, the only possessions Lillie Graham and her two children had left were the clothes they were wearing — and what was in their car.

As Hurricane Katrina approached New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the family had been ordered to leave their home in Slidell, La. They went to stay with relatives near Dallas. But when they returned home a few days after the storm, they realized they had lost everything.

“We thought we were going to be gone for a day or so,” Graham said. “When we got back, we couldn’t even get to the street we were living on. Our house had been six feet under water.

“The police turned us around and told us everything had been flooded out. It was still under water,” Graham said.

Those were hard times and the memories are still very fresh to Graham. But within two to three weeks, she and her family will be moving into their new home on 26th Avenue in Meridian. The family is getting the house through the Habitat for Humanity Building Blitz that is under way this week. She is one of four new homeowners Habitat volunteers are helping to build a new home for in the Meridian-Lauderdale County area. The construction phase is expected to be completed this week.

A year ago, Graham wasn’t sure what her next move was going to be. Along with her home, Hurricane Katrina had washed away her job.

She received some assistance from FEMA. Then she called some friends in Meridian to let them know she was OK. Graham, a native of New Orleans, had lived in Meridian 10 years earlier. Her friends encouraged her to come back and stay with them until she could get something else, and she did.

As she settled back into Meridian, Graham learned about Habitat for Humanity. She went to a meeting for Hurricane Katrina victims, and that started the ball rolling.

Habitat helps its homeowners secure a no-interest mortgage. The house belongs to the homeowner, but they have to show they can pay the note.

“I didn’t have a job when we started this process, but they worked with me,” Graham said. “Later, I got a job as a CNA (Certified Nurses Assistant) at Queen City Nursing Home and they were kind enough to reconsider my application.”

Construction started on the three-bedroom, bath-and-a-half house last weekend and the roof and walls already are up. Within the next couple of days, the inside work will be completed by an army of Habitat volunteers. She and her family have put in more than 300 hours of “sweat equity,” which also is a requirement of Habitat.

“This is too hard to describe,” Graham said, when asked about watching her new home go up. “It is a dream come true. This (experience) has been a tragedy and a blessing at the same time.

“It is going to take some time, even in the new house, to get over what has happened with me and my family. But I am grateful I came out of it alive,” Graham said.

Looking back, Graham is still amazed at the damage Hurricane Katrina caused.

“When I was a little girl, Hurricane Betsy came and it did a lot of damage,” Graham said. “But it didn’t do anything like Katrina. We were able to go back to our home after Betsy, but this one …”

Her daughter, Tranekia, is a sophomore at Meridian High School.

“Now, I want to put all of this behind me,” Graham said. “I want to see my daughter graduate from high school and going on to college.”