When they got home the next day, “A concrete step was left and the fireplace was gone — with my silver,” she said.

The day before the bulldozer arrived to clear away the remains of their house, Frisbie used a pole to to pick through the rubble one more time and heard a jingle.

“I found most of my silver,” she said. She still uses that silver service. “It’s still pitted. It went through 2 storms,” she said. “It tells a story.”

After Camille, their homeowners insurance paid enough to rebuild the house, she said.

They sold it and moved to the Kiln so her husband and daughter could have horses.

They found a house with the features she wanted: a traditional foundation, 9-foot ceilings and surrounded by oak trees. “It has to be on navigable water because I’m a boat person,” she told her husband.

Their insurance agent told her she didn’t need flood insurance, Frisbie said. “In Camille, the water just covered the docks,” she said. In Katrina, “I had 7 1/2 feet of water in my house.”
The home, barn and outbuilding were insured for just short of $500,000 when Katrina hit. When the couple filed an insurance claim,

“They offered me $2,000,” she said. They hired an independent insurance justifier from California to fight and it went to a mediator. The offer was raised to $20,000.

“That’s heartless,” the adjuster told the Frisbies and didn’t charge for his services.