Don&8217;t worry about Dix and Peter Nord. Yes, their restaurant, one of the culinary gems of the Gulf Coast, was flattened by the winds and storm surge and their home is severely damaged, but they&8217;re doing fine.

Maybe even better than fine.

&8220;I called them the other night and they were on their way out to dinner, which is something they didn&8217;t have time to do before,&8221; their oldest child, Sophie, said. &8220;So in a way it almost makes me happy.&8221;

Sophie, 25, lives in San Diego, and she worries about her parents, though.

Things have definitely changed back home.

&8220;It&8217;s more earthy, back to basics,&8221; Peter said.

The Nords moved from Natchez to Gulfport 25 years ago to open and run a Cock of the Walk restaurant for her family. That didn&8217;t work out, but they stayed in the business, opening The Chimneys in Long Beach, a nearby community.

In 2000, they bought and renovated a dilapidated early 1900s Queen Anne-style mansion on the beach that houses what&8217;s left of the current restaurant.

The basics don&8217;t include dressing up, as Mr. Nord has learned.

Peter &8212; Mr. and sir don&8217;t hold up well on the Coast these days &8212; tells of stopping into the dry cleaners to pick up a shirt and discovering he had half a dozen others there he had forgotten about.

&8220;I was excited, but then I got home, put them in the closet and there they&8217;ve stayed,&8221; he said with a smile. &8220;I haven&8217;t worn them because there&8217;s no place to go.&8221;

He says this with a glint in his eye of reminiscent of a 10-year-old boy laid up with a broken leg. Sure, my leg&8217;s broken, it says, but I am getting to miss school, aren&8217;t I?

The whole ordeal doesn&8217;t seem to faze him. He says he&8217;s happy to have his wife freed from the tyranny of running a high-end restaurant, the impossible hours and incessant worrying.

But as you sift through the rubble of the mansion he restored largely on his own, a momentary malaise settles over him and he asks if you have read &8220;Love in the Ruins.&8221;

We could use Walker Percy right now, you reply.

&8220;He&8217;d be somebody we could get behind,&8221; Peter says. &8220;He&8217;d say, &8216;you can wallow or you can get up and be productive.&8217;&8221;

Dr. Tom More, Percy&8217;s protagonist in the novel, doesn&8217;t wallow:

as his West Feliciana Parish city comes apart at the seams he calmly adapts. Things return to normal, but normal has a very different meaning.

The Gulf Coast looks a little like West Feliciana Parish these days.

&8220;What&8217;s interesting is the displacement of homes; the self-important people lived right on the beach and they all lost their homes,&8221; he said.

&8220;So their base is gone. They have no place to congregate because the yacht club is gone. Lots of them are staying in trailers.&8221;

The Nords are partially in a trailer as well: their home has one inhabitable mini-suite on the third floor &8212; an add-on for their son, Watson, 21, &8212; and a FEMA trailer out front for cooking.

&8220;Between the two, we&8217;re comfortable,&8221; Peter said.

It got a little tight over the holiday with Watson, a student at Ole Miss, and Sophie in town, but no one was complaining.

As for the future, well, they&8217;re not quite sure about that yet.

&8220;We were in the restaurant business, yes, but we are not the most die-hard restaurant people,&8221; Dix said. &8220;If we do anything here, it&8217;ll be smaller, we&8217;ll use some of the architectural details. We want to do it green.&8221;

As she launches into what she wants to do and which architect she&8217;d like to work with, she starts to sound pretty much like a die-hard restaurant person, which bodes well for her patrons.

Any future restaurant would probably have a new name. Three of the building&8217;s original four namesakes were downed by the storm.

&8220;It would have to be called The Chimney,&8221; Peter deadpanned.

But just as his wife gets excited talking about a potential future restaurant would look like, Peter is intrigued by the opportunities rebuilding present.

&8220;Get rid of some trees, open up the floor plan a little, this is great,&8221; he said.

&8220;I enjoy looking at the concept of something and then making it happen.&8221;

They won&8217;t be able to make anything happen, however, until they get their claim settled with Lloyd&8217;s of London.

Like so many others not situated in a flood plain, the Nords had no flood insurance.

They believe, however, that the 130 mile-per-hour winds that preceded the storm surge &8212; taking the roof and second floor of the restaurant with them &8212; left the building ruined before it ever got wet.

That issue will be settled through litigation, a process they don&8217;t expect to complete for some time.

Which means the restaurant will have to stay as it is for who knows how long &8212; inspections, engineering studies and no doubt more inspections.

So Dix collects bricks &8212; she&8217;s at 1,000 and counting &8212;

and Peter fishes for pieces of the Scamozzi capitals he restored, all for use in the next project.

If and when they decide to rebuild, the venue promises to be just as idyllic as before.

The oak trees on the front lawn are making a comeback, the Natchez crape myrtle in the side &8220;is showing signs of life&8221; and the magnolia trees have been &8220;blooming like crazy,&8221; Dix said.

So much promise ahead.

&8220;Isn&8217;t it good to have the big one behind you?&8221; Peter said, with mock surprise and relief. &8220;Oh, that was my nightmare, OK,now get it out of here.&8221;