My Hurricane Katrina story

[FanSoAp07]

Hurrican Katrina has cruelly enveloped my daily life for the past 6 months. Tomorrow is the half year (6 months) anniversary of Katrina ravaging my beloved city, New Orleans. June begins a whole new Hurricane Season, but that's another story. Let me give you a little background information. I don't live in the actual city of New Orleans. Southeast Louisiana is divided into 3 main categories: New Orleans, Eastbank (Metairie, Kenner), & the Westbank (Gretna, Algiers). I live on the Westbank, 5 minutes from Downtown New Orleans. Now, back to Katrina. On August 26, 2005, (A Friday) Katrina was predicted to hit the panhandle of Florida. I had work that weekend and many went out Friday Night. Saturday morning came. I turned on the TV and lo and behold, Katrina is aimed full speed for New Orleans. My worst nightmare was coming true. New Orleans is a bowl, several feet below sea level. Where I live we are about 2-5 feet above sea level. Therefore, chaos ensued. We had our annual wood waiting at my dad's office for whenever a hurricane comes. It has many things written on it: Go away Ivan, I hate Lily, and many other Hurricanes from years past. At that time, Katrina was only a Category 2. No worries. This was routine. If you live in New Orleans, you know that every year you have to pack up and leave, only to come back 3 days later. So while my mom went to the store and bought canned goods and while my dad and brother prepared the house, I was forced to go to work. I work at a childern's place called Kidsports (dort of a Chuck E Cheese meets Discovery Zone). Of course every party cancelled except mine. Everyone's eyes were glue to the TV and by the time I left, Katrina was a Category 4. Uh oh! I left for home driving on Airline, a major Hurricane Evacuation Route. There were absolutley no cars on my side. On the other side, it was bumper to bumper traffic, people leaving right away. When I arrived in my neighborhood, I decided to drive around to see who left and who stayed. In my entire 14 years living in my subdivision, I had NEVER EVER seen it as dark, ominous, and abandoned as it was. We were literally one of the last families to leave. We only packed clothes for 4-5 days, as that is the norm. We left Sunday morning at 3 AM, and I could count the number of families staying on one hand. And I KNEW this storm meant business because one of my neighbors (a mom, dad, 2 sons) WHO NEVER EVACUATE, evacuated for the first time ever. So if they evacuated, then I knew something was wrong. We left for my grandma's in Thibodaux, Lousiana. We left my house at 4, arrived at my dad's work at 6:30. It took 2 hours whereas it normally takes 20 minutes. We left his work at 7 and we drove in the car for 12 (yes, 12) hours. We picked up my grandparents and left for Alexandria, Louisiana. We arrived and slept on the WalMart parking lot floor. ALl hotels were booked. All motels were full. We were too exhausted to go any further, so our last sanctuary was WalMart. Tons of other families did it. A security gaurd drove around, and we slept on the parking lot floor. However, NONE of us could sleep. We decided to listen to the radio. Katrina was a Category 5 Storm with winds nearing 200 mph. I was scared shitless. New Orleans has NEVER EVER been hit by a 5 or even a 4 for that matter. The closest we ever got was Betsy, a cat. 3. And this was a 5 AIMED directly for New Orleans.

August 29, 2005.

Katrina hits.

We decided to go back to my grandparents in Thibodaux, Lousina, about an hour and 15 mins for New Orleans. Too close for comfort. But we were too tired to go to Arkansas or Shreveport. We arrive in Thiboduax at 5 or 6 pm. There is minimal damage there. I'm thinking if Katrina did this to Thiboduax, then what did it do to New Orleans? I hadn't seen the news in 3 days. We had no TV. No electricity at my granparents. Nothing was open. We were without power for 5 days. No baths in 5 days. 90 degree humid weather. Talk about disgusting. But the worst of all, we had no idea how New Orleans fared. Then one day, electricity returned. Naturally, we all took baths (the best shower I have EVER had!).

Then, we turned on the TV.

I was devastated at what I saw. We could not believe our eyes. The levees overtopped. New Orleans was destroyed. Our nightmare was no longer a dream. It was now. I saw looting, drowning, destruction, cruel savage acts.

I sat down and cried.

And cried.

And cried.

I was crying for hours. What had become of my once great city? It was 10 feet under water. And of course, the media was sensationalizing every last detail. They only focused on New Orleans, not the surrounding areas such as St.Brnard which was 100% devastated. There is not a house standing.

Then it hit me. What had become of my neighborhood, My HOUSE? The people who stayed behind? Is it under water, are looters breaking in, are my family and friends safe, or even alive? I was on the merge of a mental breakdown. I had never experienced such trauma in all of my life. I finally broke down one night while listening to actual 911 calls of people calling to stay alive. I actually heard people die while pleading for help. Dying from 100+ degree weather in their attics. Dying from rising water. Dying in unimaginable ways. It was horrified. How could this be happening. The superdome. I couldn's believe what I was hearing. Then, it hit me when I heard everyone was crossing the Crescent City Connection (the bridge that is the only thing connecting New Orleans to the Westbank). The first city off the CCC is Terrytown, Louisiana, My Hometown. The first Landmark: Oakwood Mall.

Looters burned it. It is closed still today. Nobody knows when it will reopen. Terrytown's major street is Terry Parkway, and If you go all the way down, I live off of it. They were migrating down. I heard people calling in on the radio, noting hundreds of thousands walking to and looting the houses. Did I even have a house?

Well, I finally got a chance to find out.

About the Sept 8-11 (don;t quite remember), we finally got a chance to see our house.

We drive on the Westbank Expressway and each city gets worse and worse. Terrytown/Algiers is the last city so I prepared for the worst. We get off on the Terry Parkway exit & the damage hits me. It is bad. Trees collapsed on houses, debris clogging the streets. We pass by my brother's school. The apartments are completely wiped out. His school has immense damage. We enter my neighborhood. You couldn't tell if it was flooded or not. My heart was racing. I was so nervouse. We enter my street. NO ONE is there. It was one of the worst feelings, if not the scariest, I have EVER had. We pull up to my house. It's standing. We can't get in our driveway because it is 10 feet high (I'm not lying) with debris and TREES. OMG There were so many TREES! We had to enter through the bakyard. All the fences were dowm amd powerlines ruined. We enter my house. It made it! It was such a great feeling that we faced. We were spared. So we packed as much as we could and retreated back to Thiboduax. I was there for a month! It was MISERABLE! Me, brother, mom, dad, gma, gpa, aunt, uncle, cousin, cousin, 4 dogs, 3 cats, 2 birds all in a crowded house. I was enrolled in a school there and we thought we were prepared to head back home.

Then RITA came. I could not believe this was happening! As if we weren't devastated by Katrina, now we have this [!@#$%^&*]! Luckily, we were spared thr brunt. We officially returned to my house the end of September! Seeing my neighbors was awesome! They all made it, but 2. One was killed in the storm, the other commited suicide. My school in New Orleans was flooded so I attended a Westbank school. I returns to myt school last month. We toured New Orleans right when we came back home. I sobbed till I couldn't dry anymore. Water lines 8 feet high. Some didn't even have water lines because the water went past the roof. I had retreat 3 weeks ago and we were there at night. We toured the city. Still no electricity 6 months later.

As I sit here writing, I personally feel that my city was neglected. Learning the statistice enraged me. The stastic that Iraq got billions more than New Orleans brought me to tears. How can a place recieve more money than a city that recieved the worst natural disaster in American History? How can a place that isn't even American recieve millions more than a major U.S. city? It just didn't make sense to me. But this week proved that New Orleans is ccoming back, slowly but surely. Mardi Gras displays our immense pride in our beautiful city and that we will come back. We are strong people, and I hope to see this city flourish and come back stronger, bigger, and better. Fianlly, I pray for every single soul who was affected by this horrible tragedy. I will never forget the date of August 29, 2005, and I hope to learn from it. May we never experience that horror that so plagued our city. I pray and hope for the recovery of New Orleans. Katrina brought us down, but we won't stay down. We will return!

Thank you and Happy Mardi Gras,

FanSoAp07

[KMan101]

Wow. Fansoap. Words cannot even describe my feelings. I really do feel for you and am glad things are looking up.

I live in Florida. Hurricanes are terrifying. I've lived through many small ones (I was alive during Andrew, but it hit too far south to have affected me), but the storms of 2004 and 2005 were horrendous. It was so stressful. My town survived all the attempts. Of course, billions of dollars in damage in a lot of the towns, cities, but never ever as close as Louisiana. My house made it through each storm, thank god. After Jeanne hit we had to put on a new roof, but even then there were very very few leaks and the only major ones were in the garage.

So... Even though I haven't been through massive damange and destruction, I totally feel for Louisiana and as stressed as I was, I can't even imagine what it would be like to have been in that situation. Let's all pray for a better hurricane season this year (i.e. no truly major ones making landfall). And even though it's supposed to be very active again, who's to say it'll be like the last two years.

Thanks for sharing, Fansoap.

[FanSoAp07]

LOL I didn't think anyone would reply!!!

Thanks, though. I felt so bad for Florida when the 4 Hurricanes hit in 2004.

I mean, I like little tropical storms, because they are sort of cool, but nothing prepared me for Katrina. And yes, let's pray for a safer season.

What part of Florida do you live in?!?!

[KMan101]

I live in Sebastian. It's right after Melbourne but right before Vero Beach on a map.

We got the "worst" of Frances and Jeanne last year (the north right quadrant, which never gave us a break. Just nonstop pounding), although the Stuart/Jupiter, etc. area got the eye and got THE worst, but it was all bad.

Yeah, up until 2004, I never really paid attention to the hurricanes that formed, etc. I guess Florida just played it safe for so long and we got slammed. It was just devastating, on an emotional level. Luckily though, through all the huricanes no flooding around my area, which honestly worries me more than just about anything else.

[OneLife Fan]

Interesting posts!! Thanx for sharing!!

[darraholic]

Thanks for sharing. It's so sad something like this happened. And it happened in the USA. Things like that shouldn't happen in a place like the US.