Rodney MacGregor and his son, Scott, 24, slept downstairs in their Gulfport, Miss., apartment the night Hurricane Katrina came. They awoke when Scott's hand fell from the love seat.

His fingers touched water. The sofas were floating.

They ran upstairs as water surged in and out with the tide. Every time waves returned, the flood was higher.

Water knocked down the front door. The refrigerator floated away. They swam out a window, where water was level with the panes. They climbed rooftop to rooftop as buildings buckled and twisted and fell apart under them.

They reached a flat roof where debris had dammed. For six hours, as shreds of rooftops and buildings whooshed by, Rodney laid there on his belly, turning his head to make sure his son, who sat in a tree, was OK.

Rodney, 52, lost his glasses and a toenail. Their home was gone. There was no place to go.

Yet a week later, they and a dozen others found themselves in Roanoke.

Salvation came in the form of white vans driven by volunteers from Let It Begin With Me. The group -- Roanoke-area residents who wanted to help after the storm -- caravanned to Biloxi during Labor Day weekend. They stopped at a school-turned-shelter, offering transportation and help finding homes to anyone who wanted to start again in Virginia -- beginning with a free week's stay at Hotel Roanoke.

Months have passed. Those who came are rebuilding lives. They came from the same city, the same shelter, but each one has a story.

Rodney and Scott MacGregor were skeptical when the caravan rolled in.

Bryan Washington, a 16-year-old living with them on the sidewalk, wanted to go to Virginia. So did J.C. Featherston, a member of their camp. Shirley Griffin asked drivers to wait while she grabbed her fiance and her son.

Rodney and Scott also climbed in a van, partially prompted by the idea of a hot meal and a warm bed.

In Roanoke, Let It Begin With Me helped the father and son rent an apartment near the Grandin Theatre. They gave them donated dressers, a donated car, clothes from Wal-Mart.

"We are not victims anymore," Rodney MacGregor said from his kitchen, where a clock ticks on the wall and the coffee pot is half full. "We are citizens of Roanoke."

It was not long before he gave back. Let It Begin With Me hopes to drive truckloads of donations to Slidell, La., before Christmas.

MacGregor donated $1,000 to the group's effort.

Bryan Washington

Gary Bullock is the type of father who tells his son to get his homecoming dress shoes -- a mix of suede and patent leather -- off "my table," in the living room.

He's the type of dad who's rule is "my music, my car," on the way to Grandma's, which in this case, means jazz and 1980s rap.

But between Bullock and his wife, Gayle, he's the softie. He canceled a month's punishment of no TV, no phones and no Internet after just one week.

Bryan Washington, 16, is the kind of kid who wears baggy jeans and a diamond ear stud. He doesn't clean his room, doesn't do his chores. He plays his music -- Usher and Pretty Ricky -- too loud.

In other words, he's just like many other 16-year-olds.

It took a hurricane, a mother giving up her parental rights, an ad on the Internet, and an empty room for Bryan and the Bullocks to form a family.

For Bryan Washington, Hurricane Katrina -- which caused so many to lose so much -- may be the best thing to ever happen to him.

The Bullocks' lives were busy even before the storm. Gayle Bullock works for Allstate Insurance by day and takes night classes at the Roanoke Higher Education Center. Last year, she worked with Gulf Coast insurance clients who'd been hit by a string of hurricanes. As Gary remodeled a downstairs bedroom during Katrina, she could not help thinking, "there must be a kid out there who is getting lost."

The family already includes grown twin girls, an 11-year-old son and Gayle's teenage nephew. Why would they want to take another child?

"Temporary insanity," Gary joked.

Gayle placed an ad for the room on Craig's List, an online community; the ad was spotted by a volunteer from Let It Begin With Me. Conversations were had, meetings took place. Next thing they knew, Bryan was moving in.

Gayle brought Bryan to the house while it was empty, so the family would not overwhelm him.

Instead, he was overwhelmed for a different reason.

"Wow," he said when he saw where he was staying. "I've never had my own room."

His room was full of visitors that first night -- neighborhood kids curious to meet the "Katrina boy."

The transition was painless and quick. One week, Gayle called daughter Garrette at college, making sure the adoption idea was OK. Next, she called to ask if she was ready to meet her new brother.

He was soon introduced to grandparents and cousins. This week, he met Garrette's twin, home for Thanksgiving from Kansas.

Bryan is a freshman at Hidden Valley High School, where he had two dates for homecoming, and plans to join the wrestling and track teams.

He has a future here.

"There ain't nothing in Mississippi," he said.

A five-minute hearing Nov. 1 made his new life official. Inside a courtroom, the Bullocks became Bryan's legal guardians.

When Gayle returned to work that day, she bragged to everyone.

"I have a son."

J.C. Featherston

J.C. Featherston's first stop after receiving a $2,000 FEMA check was Fret Mill Music, where he bought a teal green guitar.

The way he sees it, the purchase was destiny.

When he picked up that guitar, it awoke ghosts inside. He began playing and singing -- pastimes long forgotten.

The transition from Mississippi to Roanoke has not been easy.

He separated from his wife a week before Katrina. The apartment he'd rented was reduced to rubble.

When he came to Virginia -- concluding there was nothing left -- he doesn't know what prompted him to pick up music and a guitar again.

All he knows is that it's been therapeutic.

The 35-year-old waiter has loved music for as long as he can remember. Elvis Presley drew him to music at age 6. Next thing he knew, he was learning the drums.

He joined bands over the years playing guitar and saxophone, singing and strumming to jazz and alternative -- a little bit of everything. Yet he put down his guitar, tucked his sheet music away during a seven-year marriage.

An acoustic lullaby -- a ballad about love he played for the hotel group his first week in town -- led to performances at Club at Fiji Island and Brambleton Deli. He played a 30-minute version of "Voodoo Chile," by Jimi Hendrix, just him and an audience and a guitar.

"Now that I'm here, I'm looking forward to being myself again," he said. "It's almost like being reborn."

As soon as he got here, Featherston began motioning toward normal life. He asked Hotel Roanoke's human resources director for a job. He started work as a banquet server the next week.

Coping with the past and present is the toughest part of the move. But Featherston tries to focus on the good in Virginia. His Brandon Avenue apartment comes rent-free for six months. Clothes were donated by a local church. A man named Rick gave him a bed.

Yet so much is uncertain right now. He is unsure if his stay here is permanent or temporary. Some days, he still feels like a visitor.

His past is gone -- life does not prepare for repeat doses of tragedy. But he knows this: He wants music and his new teal green guitar to be part of his future.

Todd Merritt, Shirley Merritt, Catrell Griffin

Jan Fuller Carruthers, campus minister at Hollins University, said she felt like an idiot when she picked up the phone. But a story in The Roanoke Times kept bugging her.

She prayed after Hurricane Katrina for guidance on how to help. Now, the opportunity was in front of her. Finally, she made what she dubs the "dopey call."

"You don't know me," she told Shirley Griffin, 41, who answered. "But if you want to get married, I will help you do that."

After the couple agreed to Carruthers' offer, she got students involved. They arranged for a donated gown from the Bride's House and Formals -- long and white and strapless.

One student was the unofficial wedding planner. The bridesmaid was a stranger in a borrowed pink dress.

And on Sept. 13, less than a week later, Carruthers, the bride and the groom, Todd Merritt, 45, gathered for a wedding on rose-petal-strewn steps of the university chapel.

"Shirley and Todd," Carruthers said during the ceremony, "we hope and pray that you will be as generous with each other as others have been with you ... "

The couple exchanged rings, donated by Ginger's Jewelry. The couple also slipped a gold band on the finger of Catrell Griffin, Shirley's 13-year-old son, as well, a sign of love and unity.

The family has since settled into an 18th Street house similar to the one they abandoned last-minute before Katrina hit.

Shirley had given a stranger $8 to drive them to a school shelter. When they returned home two days later, there was nothing left.

"We wouldn't have survived," she said.

Here in Roanoke, Shirley works nights as a cook at Smokey Bones Barbecue & Grill.

She fixes salads, desserts and food for the fryer. Todd works there during lunch, busing tables.

Catrell is an eighth-grader at Stonewall Jackson Middle School.

They are saving for a car. Saving a Wal-Mart gift certificate for winter coats. Looking for a church that uplifts them.

Shirley still misses Mississippi -- the weather and the ocean; the lights of nearby casinos resembling a little Las Vegas.

But here in Virginia, she's experienced some things like never before.

"I've never had so many people pour out so much love and generosity."