Rochelle Clarke is a hairstylist in Beaumont, but probably wouldn't be if it wasn't for Hurricane Katrina.
"I was really thinking of moving to Houston before Katrina, but it kind of helped me...Beaumont chose me, I didn't choose it," she said.
Clarke evacuated her home in New Orleans and came to Beaumont to stay with her mother...only to evacuate days later to Dallas after Hurricane Rita hit Southeast Texas.
She says, "It's really hard on a family to leave their home to have to come to another place they're not familiar with to have to leave again is very stressful"
It's situations like these local officials are working to avoid.
"The Texas Division of Emergency Management has wisely chosen, in cooperation with other states, to not remove coastal residents to coastal counties," Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick said Tuesday.
Harris County Judge Ed Emmett had this to say about the way things were done in the past: "We're not going to do it again, it just doesn't make sense...people need to escape the fury of a storm by going inland...not by going to another area along the coast."
Which means Ford Park in Beaumont probably won't see itself packed with evacuees again like it was back in 2005.
However, as unpleasant as Rochelle's situation was, she's glad she decided to remain in Beaumont.
"It's been wonderful for me," she said with a smile.
Now she looks forward to filling her appointment book and continuing her work at Genesis Beauty Salon.
