Devastating deja vu for town hit by Rita and Ike

Heid's sister, Kellie Brown, is in a similar plight. Her house is gone, just a pile of debris.

"Second time around," she said. "When you think things can't get worse, they do."

She received 4 feet of water in her house from Rita. The repairs were almost finished.

"All I had left to do was baseboards and trimwork," she said. "Everything else had been done — three years after the fact.

"It took time, and that's the real depressing thing of it all. It's like ground zero, back to square one, all over again."

In the haste to flee the storm, she left her wedding ring on the table next to the bed. When she and her husband returned, they found the house had imploded from the storm surge.

A workman moving debris offered to use his truck to lift the roof so they could hunt for the ring.

He lifted the roof and told her husband to pull back some carpet.

"I started hollering: There it is! It was caked in mud and sheetrock but I cleaned it up and got it," she said, holding up her hand to display the ring.

Pat Sullivan / AP Wendi Pate sits on the empty slab foundation of her father's home and digs through the muck for salvageable tools Monday in Sabine Pass, Texas.

She also retrieved a Virgin Mary statue, a gift from her mother. The white statue, about 3 feet tall, had been holding up the roof. The concrete base broke but Mary survived.

"I was blessed," she said. "I got my Mary and my ring. The rest can be replaced."

Mary now is propped up against a tree at Greenwich and South 13th Avenue, her palms open toward the Gulf, a few yards from the pile of debris that once was the home whose roof she'd supported.

"It's going to take some time," Brown's sister, Heid, said. "We're being tested again. You've got to have faith."

More from msnbc.com ‘Three Cups of Tea’ advice for Obama Will nuclear fusion fade ... or finally flare? World Cup or world stage? N. Korea on display Afghanistan's dogs of war sniff out mines Pontiac hits the end of the road  Counterfeiters pose holiday safety hazard On Twitter: Breaking news updates | Weird and wild

MORE FROM HURRICANE IKE

Hurricane Ike Section Front

Galveston scrambles to heal beaches after Ike Residents stream into Ike-hit Galveston Relief agency fundraising stumbles Texas, La. ask Congress for storm money Louisiana tallies cost of Gustav, Ike Services bring comfort to Texas coast $6 billion storm? Ike delivers a punch Ike lays bare immigration paradox Some Ike victims may not be allowed to rebuild Storm brewing in Texas over wind insurance Hurricane Ike Section Front   Add Hurricane Ike headlines to your news reader: