SNOQUALMIE – Cynthia Delaney always hoped to return to her hometown of Snoqualmie sometime in the future.

But Hurricane Katrina had other plans.

The storm thrust New Orleans newlyweds Cynthia and Kevin Delaney into the Northwest last week as they fled their home near the French Quarter to start over in the Seattle area.

The couple drove to a hotel in Brookhaven, Miss., on the Saturday before the storm with only a few days’ worth of clothing, their wedding photos and a few other items. They figured they could return to their duplex in a couple days, like they had with past hurricanes. But the torrent and its remnant sea of acrid sludge convinced them to drive cross-country to Snoqualmie where Cynthia’s parents Jim and Patricia Jordan were waiting for them.

The Delaneys arrived safely and are now starting over – completely. They are searching for new jobs, a place to live and, of course, will have to replace all their submerged belongings – a collection of scarcely-used wedding gifts and new furniture.

“It’s a very strange way to start again,” Cynthia said. “New Orleans was in some ways a really foreign place, but we were there for two years and making connections with church, colleagues, friends – and to not be able to say goodbye or have any closure on our terms at all … I wish there was that closure.”

Cynthia, a 1993 Mount Si High School graduate and a 1997 graduate of Western Washington University, has a master’s degree in spiritual direction from Seattle Washington University School of Theology and Ministry and was working in New Orleans for a nonprofit group that tutored impoverished children. She has already found a part-time job locally. Kevin is a native of Massachusetts and has a doctorate in entomology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He was working as an assistant biology professor at Xavier University of