By RUSTY DENNEN

SLIDELL, La.--James and Kristy Wood can't wait to get their two children out of this Hurricane Katrina-ripped bayou town north of New Orleans and into the arms of relatives in Spotsylvania County. And thanks to a donated flight, that's happening.

A few miles away, the George family of Stafford County rolls into the parish with a truckload of goods to bring blessed relief.

It's not hard to find connections between people in the Fredericksburg area and Gulf Coast residents trying to rebound from the nation's worst natural disaster.

At the edge of a swamp near Lake Pontchartrain sits the trailer home of James and Kristy Wood and their children, Matthew, 6, and Morgan, 4.

The trailer park near Slidell, not far from an Interstate 12 exit, is a tableau of destruction: fences down, roofs caved in, homes askew on foundations. The wind blew so hard here, it scrunched the golden arches on a McDonald's restaurant sign weirdly sideways.

Two weeks after the eye of the hurricane passed nearby, they still have no power. A generator that James wisely bought when they evacuated to Houston hums outside, supplying the only electricity in their little corner of the world. The tap water is undrinkable, schools won't open for weeks and their lives are as shattered as the tree-crunched roof of the trailer next door.

Kristy, 28, is the sister of Nichole Gregory, who lives in Holleybrooke subdivision in Spotsylvania. Wood boarded a plane yesterday in Baton Rouge airport to accompany her children to Gregory's home, where they will at last begin to see some semblance of a normal life. It's Kristy's first time in an airplane.

"Everything that's happened to us doesn't bother me," she said late Wednesday. "The hardest part is that I've got to get my kids out of here."

Kristy got free tickets to Virginia from Angel Flights, a relief agency. But she'll have to pay for her flight home.

That won't be easy because her husband, a roofer, has an injury and can't work. Her job as a physical therapist here was blown away by the storm.