MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- James Chapman made big money and lived the big life in the Big Easy. And then Hurricane Katrina struck.

Today, two years later, Mr. Chapman is more than a thousand miles from his life in New Orleans, literally and figuratively.

He now resides in Osage, a Morgantown suburb, and works at a restaurant where he earns less than a third of the salary he was earning.

Moreover, the 45-year-old Southern white man lives with an 80-year-old Northern black woman, Lizzie Williams. "Miss Lizzie," as Mr. Chapman affectionately calls her, opened her home to him knowing he was down on his luck, and in the process, taught him everything he never knew about human kindness, compassion and God's love.

The painful experience of Katrina somehow led him to what he called a wonderful "second life" of peace and contentment.

"My life before was chaos. Now, my life has slowed down, and I feel much better inside." said Mr. Chapman, a self-described former "party animal." "The quality of life is not what you see on the outside, it's what you feel on the inside. The positive lesson I've learned is that money is not everything, it's people who care.

"I'm very much happier. You can't put into words how much better I feel today."

Mr. Chapman's journey of self-discovery began in the hell that was the Superdome in his adopted city.

The son of a career Army officer, Mr. Chapman was born in France and lived for a time in Germany, moving to New Orleans after graduating high school. He was drawn there by the promise of working on a tow boat where he earned upward of $200 a day at the time Katrina bore down on the city.

With the interstates clogged, Mr. Chapman heeded official pronouncements and headed for the Superdome where he assumed human needs of food, clothing, shelter and dignity would be met. Instead, he said that what he and 10,000 others experienced was beyond comprehension in a civilized country.

"Total chaos, if there ever could be chaos," he said, wincing at the memory. "We lived like, I guess you would say, a bunch of savages."

There were hours-long lines for everything and not enough of anything. Toilets backed up with sewage seeping onto the arena floor. Martial law was declared and no one could leave the filth, the stench, the danger. A natural disaster had been compounded by a manmade catastrophe.

There were many questions, and fewer answers, he recalled: "How do we get water today? How do we survive?"

Mr. Chapman suffered from bipolar disorder and depression but had it under control in the routine of his life in New Orleans. Katrina and the Superdome changed all that.

"I've always had a pretty steady life. I was dealing with depression as far as that goes, but that happened and I didn't know how to deal with it. A lot of people didn't know how to deal with it."

After a week in the squalor, Mr. Chapman was among those loaded onto buses. He presumed they were going to Houston where other evacuees had been taken, but instead they went to an airport.

"It took about eight hours to get on the bus that took us to the airport. We were lined up like cattle and it took another six to eight hours to get on the plane. Nobody told us anything. We didn't know where we were going, but I didn't care. I was just glad to get away from the Superdome."

So putrid were his shoes, he threw them away. He would have done the same with his pants had he been able to do so.

But everything changed on the plane. Evacuees were given food and blankets. They were told they were headed to West Virginia.

"I thought, 'Good God, where's West Virginia?' But I'll tell you what, when I got off that plane in Charleston I was treated like a king. It was the first time I took a shower in seven days or brushed my teeth. It was beautiful. And ever since I've been treated with kindness and respect, something that was very much lacking in New Orleans."

Mr. Chapman was among 343 evacuees airlifted to West Virginia and taken to Camp Dawson, a National Guard facility near Kingwood, W.Va., where for a month or so they were fed, housed, clothed, provided medical aid, new identification documents, disaster aid and other benefits.

Once he was able to have his savings transferred to West Virginia, he moved to Morgantown, got an apartment and had hopes of working as a coal miner. No one was hiring but Mr. Chapman decided after about six months that he would make a go of it in a state where he had experienced so much compassion.

He worked for a time at a pizza place and then got his current job at the Golden Corral restaurant, where he washes dishes, cuts meat, does prep work and cleans. He makes about $7.25 an hour, a far cry from the $25 an hour he used to earn but he's happier than ever.

Adding to the contentment is his association with Ms. Williams, whom he met in April 2006 at Scott's Run Settlement House, a United Methodist-linked social service agency in Osage. He was running out of money at the time and she offered him a job painting the roof of her trailer.

After he completed the job the two talked. Ms. Williams, who throughout her life has opened her door to those less fortunate, asked if he needed a place to stay.

"This is what I do, unto the Lord," said Ms. Williams, who lives on a pension. "This is what life is all about, helping people. What I have, I share. I'm a giver; this is fulfilling for me."

No longer able to afford his apartment, he gladly accepted her offer, which included more than he could have imagined.

"Miss Lizzie is the soul of the earth. She brings me peace. We go to church. She set me on the right track, something I think I missed all of my life," he said.

"She has given me a different perspective on life. I always thought that [life] owed me. I owe it today, I owe it to be the best person, to be a useful person, to get along with my fellow man, to not judge people and to always be kind.

"Maybe the Superdome was a wake-up call; that's what I'm using it as."

His partying days over, Mr. Chapman said he now finds joy in reading mysteries and Westerns. He hopes to fall in love, get married and have children, something he never considered before.

He credits divine intervention for his life changes.

"Something drew me out of New Orleans. It had to be God. No people helped me there," he said. "A lot of people don't give the Lord credit when the Lord's due, and I didn't all of my life. I blamed him for a lot of things in my past life."

As for New Orleans, he said he may go back there some day for Mardi Gras "but I'll never go back to stay."

The man who once frequented Bourbon Street but found no joy there now finds immense happiness in attending a strawberry festival in Buchanan, W.Va., talking to Miss Lizzie, going to work, reading, making new friends and being a survivor.

"I'm not leaving," he said, smiling broadly. "This is home."