ESCONDIDO —— Hurricane Katrina drove some 1,500 evacuees into San Diego County, and five families into the arms of Interfaith Community Services, an Escondido-based nonprofit that runs several housing programs.

Their stories reveal tales of trying conditions, difficult decisions and now the process of settling into new homes, finding work and rebuilding their lives.

Here are two families' stories.

Nursing school

Heeding calls for evacuation, Stephanie Enclade's parents left their house of 16 years in St. Bernard Parish with her daughter and miniature pinscher. They left Aug. 28, one day before Katrina hit, headed for Oceanside to stay with a relative.

Enclade, 21, went to her job handling intake and paperwork at the local emergency room. Stuck inside the Chalmette Medical Center throughout the storm, Enclade went to sleep that Sunday night. When she awoke Monday, trees and debris were flying past the windows of the hospital.

Once the levees broke, water rushed down the street and into the hospital, rising at a rate of about 5 feet a minute, wiping out the hospital's generators and creeping up toward the second floor, where the patients had been relocated.

Two days later, emergency workers loaded the hospital team and patients onto boats and took them to a prison 10 miles away, on dry land. Outside the prison stood 300 storm victims, waiting for emergency care.

For the next three days, the hospital staff worked around the clock attending to the stream of patients as best they could with minimal supplies. Enclade, who was studying to become a paramedic, did her share, administering IVs, bandaging and suturing wounds.

"By the end of it, I was pretty much doing everything," said Enclade, who also helped doctors deliver a baby girl, aptly named Katrina.

In between attending patients, Enclade napped when she could and ventured out once on a firefighter's boat to survey her house, only to find the first story completely submerged.

When she reunited with her family in Oceanside after flying into San Diego on Sept. 3, her 3-year-old daughter asked her when they were going home.

"I was like, 'Baby, we don't have a home,' " said Enclade, who has been staying with her family at an Oceanside motel for the last week.

The family, she said, does not intend to go back. She plans to go to nursing school. Her parents have started looking for work. Together they spend their days on the phone with insurance companies, relief organizations and former employers.

This week, the family started moving into one of Interfaith's apartments in Escondido. Little by little, Enclade has tidied up the cozy two-bedroom apartment where they will live until they receive their insurance checks, save some money and buy a home somewhere in the county.

For now, nothing is really theirs. The silverware, tables, sofa, all are a far cry from the memories of their home in Chalmette.

"It's a huge difference, but it's not horrible," Enclade said of her temporary homestead. "Just a few touches will make it homey."

Nowhere left but up

Hurricane warnings are not unusual in Gulfport, and Taneka Johnson and Tracey Bullard figured they could take their 1-year-old son, Maleek, and wait out Katrina in her mother's house.

Before leaving their flood-prone apartment, Johnson gathered two changes of clothes for everyone. Bullard grabbed a thick, white copy of the Holy Bible where he keeps the program from his father's funeral, an Army soldier who drowned in San Diego when Bullard was a boy.

"I always carry the Bible," said Bullard, 34.

From inside the center rooms at Johnson's mother's house, the storm certainly seemed severe. But it wasn't until they emerged that they saw the houses with entire roofs carried away by the winds, flooded streets littered with glass, trees and utility poles.

"You're looking around and there's nothing here," said Johnson, 24, explaining why they have no plans to return. "It can't get worse than that."

"I loved my life," she added. "But I guess when it's gone, it's gone."

Decision made.

The couple and their son piled into Johnson's 1997 Oldsmobile sedan for the trek to San Diego, where Bullard has family. Packed alongside the family were Althea, Bullard's cousin, and her three teenagers and a chihuahua.

Before leaving Gulfport, the families stopped to buy a spare tire, just in case. The $150 the store manager wanted was too expensive, but the tire would have come in handy for that first flat tire in Texas, or the second in Arizona.

Once in San Diego, the Red Cross put them up in a Ramada. Then it started to sink in. They didn't know where the stores were, how to get from the hotel to anywhere. They are still marveling at all of the assistance that keeps coming their way.

This week, they started to settle into an apartment Interfaith has provided for them.

On Friday, Maleek curiously made his way around the coffee table, upon which sat toys, relief assistance papers, and two packs of diapers the couple picked up at a food bank. On a chair beside Bullard were some clothes purchased with a donated gift card from Wal-Mart.

Johnson, a customer service assistant, and Bullard, who worked as an electrician at a Gulfport shipyard, spent the afternoon at a Red Cross job fair. Both have interviews Monday.

"It's all still scary, because you don't know anything," Bullard said.

Contact staff writer David Fried at (760) 740-5416 or dfried@nctimes.com.