Katrina Evacuee at Home at McKinney North

Matt Wixon

Katrina evacuee feeling at home at McKinney North

12:44 AM CDT on Thursday, October 9, 2008

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Some areas hit by Hurricane Ike last month could take months or years to recover. Other areas might never be the same, which is how Chris Allen describes his former New Orleans neighborhood three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated it.

"It's totally different. It's like a ghost town," said the McKinney North receiver. "I miss the old New Orleans, not the New Orleans now."

Allen, a 6-2, 190-pound senior who leads his team in receiving this season with 25 catches for 384 yards and two touchdowns, evacuated from New Orleans before Katrina came ashore. His family moved to Jasper briefly before moving to McKinney, and Allen enrolled at North for the second semester of his freshman year.

He wanted to return to New Orleans, where he had lived his entire life. But the members of his extended family who returned to New Orleans told Allen that he was better off staying in McKinney.

After all, the school that Allen attended in New Orleans still hasn't reopened. His former classmates are taught in trailers that were set up near the old campus.

VERNON BRYANT/DMN McKinney North wide receiver Chris Allen has 25 catches for 384 yards and two TDs.

Now Allen is on a school campus so large that it intimidated him when he first arrived. When he saw the athletic facilities and the indoor practice facility, he said he felt like he was at a college. That was pretty exciting for an athlete who loves basketball and football, but making friends was difficult at first.

"He was trying to find his way around, trying to get comfortable, trying to find his niche," McKinney North football coach Shawn Pratt said. "When he first got here, he wasn't Chris. He was real quiet.

"Now if anybody was around here and saw him, they would never imagine he was a real quiet kid."

Over the last three years, Allen has played basketball for McKinney North and learned a lot about football, which he didn't start playing until eighth grade. Allen said the football team has helped him feel at home.

"I was scared to meet people when I got here. I was really shy back then," he said. "I've made a lot of friends through football."

The friendships, Allen said, are more important to him than anything he does on the field.