SAVANNAH, Ga. () — When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, many evacuees came to the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry to seek safety.

Many of them never left.

Jeremy Davis and Clay Johnson are the bandleaders of the Fabulous Equinox Orchestra. They are familiar faces to many locals who love their music. Both hail from Louisiana and, in the days, weeks and years after Katrina, they chose Savannah as their permanent home.

Davis said the time leading up to the hurricane’s landfall was surreal.

“Getting on the interstate in this sea of humanity, of people fleeing from the Gulf Coast, coming north, and then we’re just kind of going all the way to the coast. It was a really crazy day for sure.”

Johnson and his family didn’t leave ahead of Katrina. They stayed in Baton Rouge, north of the storm. He still recalls how scary it was.

“We went back to our in-laws and we just kind of hunkered down there and man, the storm. We were watching the news. Storm came and hit and we watched the news until everything, all electricity went out. And then we just were relying on the radio and all that kind of stuff. We stayed up all night. And the wind was howling. We woke up the next morning and the wind was still coming in, still whipping trees over and ripping things down and we stayed there until we could finally get out.”

Once the worst was over, the realization of what happened set in. “It was really bad in Baton Rouge,” Johnson told News 3. He recounted how Baton Rouge’s population nearly doubled overnight with people heading north to escape the devastation. There were FEMA trailers and tent cities for evacuees.

It took Johnson a while to catch up with Davis in the Coastal Empire but the two musicians say they can’t imagine living anywhere else now.

“You’d be amazed at the similarities between Savannah and New Orleans: the architecture, the cultural melting pot that it is…with the arts and entertainment. There’s just so many similarities in [the two cities] that it’s kind of a natural fit for us.”

Even though both men and their families now call Savannah home, their hearts will always be in Louisiana.

“I think the greatest tragedy of the whole thing is the people, all the loss of life. But even beyond just that, it’s all the people spread to the four winds. And New Orleans people are spicy and unique and interesting. And everywhere they went, they found amazing people that love them.”

They include themselves in that group, saying Savannah has been everything they hoped it would be and more.