By Kathryn Skelton,Staff Writer

Joe Thornton watched lots of TV before leaving with a supply of Gatorade, fuel and generators for his stranded in-laws.

“It’s different up close,” he said Saturday from the road, midway back on his trip from Mississippi to Rumford.

It’s so much worse.

His brother-in-law, Rumford native Tom Dayon, lives in Petal, Miss. In next-door Hattiesburg, where Dayon is a firefighter, there’s not a power line standing. Trees are down. Roofs are damaged.

Hurricane Katrina left her mark everywhere, changing neighborhoods and people overnight.

On Tuesday, Dayon had his first would-be looter stop by. At a fire call, he watched an angry homeowner knock a firefighter off his ladder.

He saw a little girl who’d been shot for her piece of chicken. He was at the scene after a brother shot his sister over two bags of ice.

“There’s no communication down there,” Thornton said. “They sat there for an hour waiting for the ambulance before she died.”

The Dayons’ house, spared from flooding, is damp and damaged and quickly being overtaken by mold.

Dayon and his wife, Melinda, took it all in and decided to send their kids to Maine.

Thornton, his wife’s brother and her father, Ron Dayon, left Thursday.

Linda Thornton spent the weekend getting her house ready for her two nephews, Colby, 12, and Ryan, 9.

Ryan has asthma. “Everything is so rotten. His lungs just couldn’t take it,” Linda Thornton said. Her brother told her, “I’ve only got enough medicine for him for a week.’ My husband just said, We’ll be down.'”

She said Tom and his family originally believed they could ride out the hurricane. They were at their second home in Bay Saint Louis, on the bayou, last weekend when they got the order for an emergency evacuation. They left, taking a neighbor, his wife and their five pit bulls, who had nowhere else to go.

At home in Petal, 90 minutes inland, they figured they were safe. A tree crashed into the house Monday during 120 mph winds.

“The whole street’s just full of cars and houses,” Linda Thornton said. “He said it just looks like somebody set off a bomb.”

She found a generator in Auburn and loaded her husband’s truck with $800 in supplies before he left Maine. A brother in New Hampshire found two more generators. She said Tom warned her to cover the truck bed in tarps and tape to discourage would-be car jackers.

“My mom was very concerned that she’d never see my dad again,” Linda Thornton said.

The boys will arrive today. Ryan’s going into fourth grade, Colby into sixth grade. The plan is for them to start school with their new Rumford classmates Wednesday.

Ryan’s a little scatchy – adding to his discomfort after the hurricane, his parents found out he has chicken pox.

The Thorntons have four children, three of whom still live at home. Her nephews will double-up rooms with her two sons, who are almost the same age.

“I think they’re ready to just have some comfort,” Linda Thornton said on Saturday. She talked to Melinda after the boys left on their journey to Maine. “I heard a little bit of quiver in her voice. But when Tommy’s at work, she’s got to stay at the house, or there’d be nothing left.” It would all be robbed.

It’s unclear if the Dayons’ house in Petal can be saved and rebuilt. Linda Thornton believes the boys will be staying with them until their school and house are in order. It could be awhile. She’s trying to plan a local benefit dinner for her brother soon. He grew up in Rumford, and their parents are still there.

Tom’s house has been without power all week and only has had off-and-on, questionable water. Joe Thornton said his brother-in-law put the generator to use powering lights and a refrigerator, and had taken an unusual security measure.

“They’ve tied a pit bull to each vehicle at night, it kind of deters the unwanted guests, you might say,” he said.

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