Brothers Jack and Sam Craft may be in culture shock, but at least they’re safe.

For now, they’re UTM students without a major and without a real home.

Jack, 20, and Sam, 18, evacuated New Orleans before deadly Hurricane Katrina struck the city.

Large portions of New Orleans flooded after water from Lake Pontchartrain rushed through breaks in the levee system that protected the city.

The Crafts left New Orleans and Loyola University, where the brothers were majoring in string performance, with their parents, older brother, two younger sisters, grandmother and their dog to live with their aunt.

“New Orleans was evacuated because of the threat of the hurricane, not the levees breaking,” Jack said.

“We all expected the city to be half-destroyed, but we thought we could all go home,” Sam added.

But now the brothers will be in Martin at least until this winter. For weeks, 10 people and three dogs lived in a cramped Martin house.

The brothers’ aunt and her two dogs live in her room, Jack and his older brother are in another, their parents, two sisters and their dog are in a study. Sam sleeps on a couch.

Despite the cramped conditions, Sam continues to play his violin and Jack, his cello.

The brothers’ father left Saturday to go back to work in New Orleans, and their aunt left the next day. Still, the brothers are having a hard time living in tight quarters.

“It’s hectic around here without much privacy,” Jack said, “but at least we have a place to stay.”

Initially, the brothers’ family was reluctant to leave the nearly 500,000-person city at the delta of the Mississippi River. Having lived in New Orleans for most of their lives, the family first didn’t want to evacuate.

“They had their usual response of ‘We’re always dry, and we survived Camille. We’re staying,’” Jack said.

Hurricane Camille struck the Gulf coast and caused massive damage in 1969.

The family left at 3 a.m. August 28, a day before Katrina smashed the city and breached the critical levees keeping Lake Pontchartrain out of the city, after Mayor Ray Nagin gave a mandatory evacuation order.

The Crafts were able to get out of the city in time, but their passion, music, is in many respects left behind.

“We’re one of the luckiest families I know,” Jack said.

“Some close friends of mine have lost everything. You tend to take for granted the things you see around you. Some areas are totally gone. It’s totally unreal.”

Jack and Sam played in Glasgow, a prominent band in New Orleans, and the brothers were working on an album with the group when Katrina struck.

Their recording studio has been destroyed.

Jack and Sam are trying to get in touch with other band members and have a goal to finish their album by winter.

Meanwhile, they’re taking classes at UTM under Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen’s order to waive tuition for displaced students. Because UTM doesn’t have a strings program, the brothers are just taking fundamental core classes.

“We’re used to a small urban campus in a tight-knit group of people,” Jack said.

“It’s really hard to jump into an unfamiliar environment, but we’re doing the best we can to make the best of a bad situation.”

The brothers plan to leave Martin and its 10,000 residents to return to the Crescent City to finish their music educations, even though they acknowledge that the New Orleans music scene will have to be rebuilt.

“Hopefully we’ll be one of the bands to rebuild the city musically, but we won’t know until it happens,” Jack said. “Everything has changed, and we don’t know what’s still standing.”

But the brothers are apprehensive about what they’re returning to. The Crafts said they’re likely to never see many of their friends again because they have relocated to other parts of the country. Jack regrets not being able to say goodbye.

Sam drove his girlfriend from Tennessee to California because he didn’t know when he’d be able to see her again.

Loyola is tentatively scheduled to reopen for the spring semester in January, but Jack predicts a quarter of the school won’t return for classes.

“It’s not that (Loyola) won’t be ready to use before January, but they have to wait until the city has enough basic necessities,” Jack said. Loyola is physically and structurally sound despite ravaging winds and flood water.

Even though they say their lives are on hold thanks to natural disaster, Jack and Sam Craft say they’re lucky to have their family. And they still play their music.

As of press time, Katrina’s death toll had climbed to 973. The hurricane has caused an estimated $125 billion in damage.