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BLUFFDALE -- A day after arriving in Utah, Mary and David Richard Jr. are ready to call this their new home.
Awed by the kindness that has enveloped them since their arrival and stunned by the beauty of the Wasatch Mountains, the New Orleans' couple have begun the search for a new house, a new life.
There is nothing to return to, they said Monday as they ate lunch in a dining hall at Camp Williams. Their home is gone and with it their day-care business.
"This opportunity has opened doors for us," Mary Richard said. "I'm hoping we can start our business again. We have no intentions of going back there to live. Everyone is warm here, courteous. They don't let you want for anything."
Like the Richards, a handful of other evacuees said Monday they were prepared to make a fresh start in Utah. They are among some 600 people brought here from ravaged New Orleans as of late Sunday, when the most recent planeload of evacuees arrived in Utah.
Most lost everything and many are haunted by what unfolded in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And that has prompted some to look with fresh eyes at a state they never imagined visiting, let alone calling home.
Derrick Louis, 10, had just one question about the place his mother, Nicole Miller, is thinking about making their new home: "Does the rain touch the ground?"
Miller said her children -- along with Derrick, there is Dominque, 8; Deja, 3; and Denzel, 6 -- are confused about the past week's events and are "still dreaming about water. All of us are dreaming about water."
The children are signed up for school, she said. In the meantime, Derrick cannot wait to visit the mountains.
"They are big," Derrick said.
The Richards, who lived in the Seventh Ward in New Orleans, stayed in their home as Katrina ripped through the city. When water flooded the home's first level, Mary helped husband David, a quadriplegic, move to the second floor. A generator and stockpile of food and water lasted six days. Then they flagged down a Coast Guard helicopter, which whisked them to the airport Saturday. Hours later, they were bound -- much to their surprise -- for Utah.
David Richard suffered a gunshot wound 21 years ago when his little brother accidently dropped a loaded gun.
He hasn't let the injury keep him from a full life. David Richard competed in swimming events in the 1996 Paralympics, taking home two silver medals and a bronze. In New Orleans, he played on the Jackson Jags quadriplegic rugby team and was thrilled to hear there is a team in Utah. All the more reason to settle.
Some evacuees, such as Darnell Burrows, believe God delivered them here. She left her home with little more than a Bible and identification papers, first going to the Superdome and then the Convention Center. "I never experienced, in my lifetime, such a horrible experience," Burrows said.
Faith and prayer are "what kept my sanity; that is what kept my peace," she said.
When Burrows, with her twin brother, boarded a plane Sunday, she thought they were headed for San Antonio. Told the plane would go to Utah, "We just smiled. They were so kind to us."
And now she wants to stay, perhaps open a bakery like the one she had in New Orleans: Sweet Scriptures, where patrons could buy cookies and cakes hand-painted with scripture verses.
"This is where [God] sent me," she said.
Dan Corkren, 47, formerly of Gentilly, La., wants to stay, too, and was full of praise for his temporary living quarters at Camp Williams. He shepherded his elderly mother and great aunt through the chaos before the two women were moved to a medical center at the Superdome. Corkren was sent to the Convention Center, which quickly became "a toilet," he said.
Corkren, who had visited Utah previously, is spreading the word among his family, hoping to persuade a sister who landed in Texas and his other relatives to relocate here.
"The welcome, the generosity, everyone is commenting on it," Corkren said.