Cliff Buchan
News Editor

A Forest Lake High School graduate who moved to suburban New Orleans just one month ago is back home in Minnesota this week after fleeing the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Molly Fraley, 22, and six other co-workers and friends, made it from their suburban home of Metairie to Pass Christian, MS, where they rode out the storm last week, her parents, Ron and Lori Fraley said.

Fraley arrived back in the Twin Cities late Monday evening from Baton Rouge, LA.

The Fraleys said Molly called home Saturday night, Aug. 27, saying she was leaving Metairie with her boss and spouse and their two children. Metairie sits near Lake Pontchartrain.

A series of dikes that control flood waters from the huge lake later failed, flooding most of New Orleans.

Molly Fraley moved to the South last month to work in the corporate office of a company that develops and opens restaurants. The company office was also in Metairie.

Ron and Lori Fraley said they spent last week awaiting communication from their daughter.

The area where Fraley and her friends fled was actually closer to where the eye of the hurricane slammed into the Mississippi coast.

Pass Christian is on the gulf coast and two towns south and west of Gulfport and Biloxi, MS, two cities that took the brunt of the winds, rain and storm surge on Monday.

Ron Fraley said this week Molly would remain in Minnesota for a week before heading south again to resume work.

One of her upcoming assignments will take her to Atlanta where she will spend two months helping open a new restaurant, he said.

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