Two days before the storm hit, I found myself at the hotel where I work. News reports were that Katrina definitely had her eye on us. I had guests calling down all day asking what they should do. How the hell do you tell someone who doesn't live here what to do, when you don't even know what you and your family, who live here, are going to do??? People started getting pissed at me because I couldn't tell them what to do. When cabs were scarce and flights out of New Orleans were all booked, it was my fault. I'm just that powerful.
After working 8 hours of hell, I joined my mom in moving our kitchen to the home that we were supposed to be moving into the next weekend. On the world's oldest and tiniest television, we listened (because how the hell can you get a clear picture on a tv that still has an antenna) to the weather reporters say that everyone needed to make plans to leave.
After a little while, we returned to our apartment to think things through. The year before we had made the decision to stay at the hotel she was working at because another massive storm named Ivan was supposed to hit us. It never did. For a while we tinkered with the idea of staying, which later we'd see would've been a potentially deadly decision. It took a lot of convincing on my part and my mom's friend's part to make the decision to leave. We decided that if we were going to leave, we were going to leave that night because trying to leave the next day would have been an even bigger nightmare than it already was.
So, around 10:30 that Saturday night, we packed up some clothes, pictures, and other valuables and headed out of New Orleans. Crossing the river, there was an eery, peaceful beauty to the city. How were we to know that 48 hours later the city we loved was to never be the same.
We made it into the contraflow and I'll spare you the hell that was sitting on the interstate over the bayou in pitch blackness for well over an hour. We have family friends that live in north Louisiana and my mom decided that's where we would go, but once we got there, they didn't have room for us. At one point, after sleeping at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere for a little bit, we headed back on the road towards Texas. My mom at the time was working for the Hilton corporation and we called their central reservation line and got the 2 closest rooms in Dallas.
At this point we went from it being me, my mom, and her friend to me, my mom, her friend, my brother, sister-in-law, my nephew, my dad and his girlfriend. All in 2 rooms.
My brother and his family left less than 12 hours after we left New Orleans. While they were on the interstate close to the airport (which they were stuck at for quite a long time) the mayor of chocolate city, Ray Nagin, made the call for a mandatory evacuation. My brother was constantly texting me, so that we knew where they were and what was going on. At one point, I got the word that my dad STILL had not left New Orleans. Eventually they all made it to Dallas, first my brother and his family late that night and then my dad and his girlfriend even later that night.
The day that Katrina hit blended into the next day. At first we thought we dodged a bullet, but then the levees started to break. We thought our apartment in Terrytown was fine because there were no levee breaches there. We wouldn't know until a few days later that a tornado hit our apartment complex and we lost everything.
Going back to New Orleans that week after Katrina wasn't fun. Once you got close, you could already tell that things were never going to be the same. We made a stop at my brother's house to get some of their stuff because we had no idea when we'd be allowed to go back home. I guess we looked really suspicious carrying black garbage bags out of the house because a blackhawk helicopter hovered over the house. I guess they realized we weren't looters at one point and flew off. Next we went to our apartment. When we turned the corner on our street, I just lost it.
The roof had flown off most of the apartments and it was mold city. To get in, we practically had to bust the door down. Inside was horrible and I'll never forget that smell. Every time I am somewhere and smell mold, I immediately get sick and have flashbacks to that day. Almost every inch of the apartment was covered in mold and the ceiling had fallen everywhere. Everything we owned was gone, destroyed by water and mold.
Eventually we were able to leave Dallas and return to New Orleans. In all we were there for close to 2 months. We returned to New Orleans and stayed with my cousin and her husband, mom and sister. I shared a bed with my mom for the next 3 months. I love my mom, but not that much. Slowly we were able to rebuild our lives, but it will never be the same. The house we were supposed to move into the weekend after Katrina hit suffered water damage and it wasn't until that February that we were able to get into it, having spent some time in a FEMA breadbox that they called a trailer.
In all, Katrina was a life changing event that I hope to never have to go through in my lifetime again. Katrina is still fresh on everyone's mind because there is still so much that needs to be done in this city. People who don't live here say why bother rebuilding when we're just sinking by the day. If we stopped helping communities that are devastated by natural disasters, then no one in the USA will have a place to live. How many times have federal dollars gone to cities ravaged by earthquakes, ice storms, blizzards, tornadoes, etc. to help them rebuild? Why is this anything different?
It's still annoying that people think that because I didn't live in the 9th ward or St. Bernard parish that I didn't lose anything. To those assholes that I still have to remind that they weren't the only ones to lose everything, I say this, if the levees hadn't breached flooding their homes, I'd still have lost everything. Your life would not have changed, but everyone was impacted and you need to stop acting like the victim. Move on and be thankful that you now have a place to rest your head and be thankful for another day.
That bitch Katrina over the Gulf.
My apartment is under this part of the blown off roof.
Me, devastated
The living room. Would you like to sit down???
I found a looter in my room. Oh wait, that's just my mom.
My brother, inspecting before we walk in on looters...
My brother's house and the tree that almost went in it
My brother's backyard. Notice the purple chair? We found it that way when we got there.
You were smart to leave on Saturday... we waited until Sunday morning. At 4:45 am, we drove down to the Cutoff and got my grandparents and left. We were on the bridge over the lake at 10 and noticed that there were no birds to be seen.
ReplyDeleteThere's no one that lived in LA or Mississippi on that date that will ever forget.