By EDMUND M. SILVESTRE

Unlike thousands of other hurricane victims who have no families to run to, Rica Adam is grateful she has a close-knit Filipino family in San Jose, California who welcomed her with open arms after she and her boyfriend’s newly purchased house near New Orleans was flooded — and perhaps destroyed — by Hurricane Katrina.

“We just closed escrow Aug. 19,’’ said Adam, 35, as she tearfully shared photographs of the new home she and her boyfriend Jason Bailey, 30, bought in Chalmette. Chalmette — along with most of St. Bernard Parish, a community east of New Orleans — was hard hit. “I was supposed to get a paycheck Sept. 1. Our first mortgage payment is due Oct. 1. I’m happy to see my family and I’m glad we have someplace to be, but we have nothing else.’’

Adam and Bailey, along with Adam’s 13-year-old son Troy fled Katrina in their truck last Aug. 28.

Troy, an honors student, only had time to grab his school identification card and some clothes when they drove Sunday all the way to the Florida panhandle, not realizing they were heading into the trajectory of the storm.

On Monday, they turned back, hoping to check on their house. But by Tuesday the levees had broken, St. Bernard Parish was flooding and traffic was a nightmare.

The devastation wreaked on Louisiana kept them traveling west first to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, then Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, where they said they met thousands of other unwilling migrants on the road, enduring days of torturous conditions, without food and drinkable water,

During their highway odyssey, the family slept in their truck because most motel rooms were sold out or did not accept pets. They saw thousands of evacuees on the highway, other families on the run. There were dozens of dogs at every rest stop.

Troy has been most upset by the stories of evacuees being told to leave their pets behind. His dog Jaeger — a light brown Jack Russell Terrier — is enormous comfort.

After a five-day, cross-country road trip, the three, along with the family dog, have taken shelter with Adam’s brother, parents and three others in a three-bedroom home.

Before Hurricane Katrina scattered more than half a million people, including Adam, there were already six people living in the small home on Mount Herman Drive in East San Jose: Adam’s brother Jojo Dionisio, his partner Deanna Santos, his daughter Tarah, and their son Nico, along with Jojo and Rica Adam’s parents, Elizabeth and Herman Dionisio.

It was the same family who urged Adam to come to San Jose as they watched the hurricane news unfold.

While California officials have said the state can accept up to 1,000 evacuees in coming days, unknown more could be going uncounted like Adam and her family, resettling without government assistance.

Adam, who worked for an insurance brokerage company, made plans over the weekend to enroll her son in high school, but worries about being a burden on her family.

Bailey, who worked as a biomedical technician at a large public hospital where doctors and patients spent days trapped by floodwaters, hopes to find a similar job in San Jose.

“All I know is I’m not where I’m supposed to be,” said Adam. “I have bills to pay. If it hadn’t flooded, we’d be home right now.”

Other Filipino evacuees were not as fortunate as Adam. Many Filipino families who left the hurricane-torn region have no close relatives in other states and are now staying in high school gyms and other shelters across the country, according to the Red Cross.

Three large extended Filipino families found themselves in Kearny High School’s gym in San Diego after boarding a chartered 737 jet that lifted off from Baton Rouge.

This flight of 82 beleaguered survivors of Hurricane Katrina out of Louisiana shelters and into California was made possible by San Diego businessman David Perez.

The oil exploration company executive paid an estimated $250,000 of his own money to bypass professional relief operations whose slow pace propelled him into action.

The refugees — mostly African-American, with some Caucasians and three large extended Filipino families are staying at Kearny High School while the Red Cross determines their immediate needs and connects them with other agencies to provide longer-term help.

While thousands fled their homes, one Filipino family in Gulfport, Mississippi — a 20-minute-drive from Biloxi — braved Katrina and endured her wrath inside their home from two days.

Seventy-eight-year-old Felicisimo Estrella, a native of Pozorrubio, Pangasinan, said due to the distance of the shelter and the traffic nightmare caused by evacuation, he chose to stay in his family’s Gulfport home with his wife Preciosa, their daughter Fe E. Molina and her husband Henry, and one of the Molinas’ two children, Heidi, 12

“It may be a wrong decision to stay, but in the end it was a good choice,” Felicisimo Estrella, a retired employee at the Navy Exchange, told the Filipino Reporter. “Had we left our house, it would have been totally destroyed by now.”

Estrella explained that when flying shingles and strong winds busted their windows, they acted right away to cover the windows with carpets, blankets and plywoods that shielded the house from enormous wind and rain, thereby limiting the damages.

“The strong wind was unbelievable,” he said. “I thought our house will be demolished. The power was out and we kept on praying — we prayed the rosary, we prayed to Our Lady of Manaoag.”

“No house in our neighborhood was left undamaged,” Estrella continued. “Thank God our house is on a higher ground. Many not only lost their homes, many of their loved ones also drowned.” As of Wednesday, Estrella said power is still out and people are enduring 98 degrees of hot weather.

Had Estrella and his family lost their home, they would have relocated to New Jersey, where they have extended families in Jersey City and Carteret.