Arriving in New Orleans for the very first time was an exciting one. I have always wanted to visit this city but, now I was able to go to school in this interesting place. When I came down here I forgot that I was in an area that has been prone to get hurricanes here and there. My memory was jumpstarted when I was woken up by my resident assistant saying we had an emergency meeting. During this meeting we were told that we should call our parents to see if they wanted us to stay and evacuate or go home. Coming from New Jersey its not easy to just pack up and spend about 500 dollars on a one way ticket home. I had called my parents and they were convinced that Xavier was going to evacuate the students remaining to another school more inland.
Next, my hall director advised us to pack a bag of your most important items to take with us. Something had dramatically changed from Saturday to Sunday, in the beginning I was evacuating, and then on Sunday at 2:00pm I was locked in my dorm and was told that we were “riding out the storm”. I was enraged because the school had lied to us but, also our parents. Then around 1:00am on Monday more students came from another dorm and shacked up with us until the storm hit. After about 200 plus students were settled in the lobby everyone headed to the third floor in the back hallways where there were no windows. As soon as we got up there it became hot and very cramped and Sunday night blended it wit Monday morning.
Then, while the storm was in effect I was able to take a glimpse of what was happening outside. Since it was not bad outside I started to do my homework thinking that we would have school about two days after the storm stopped because the aftermath on Monday night was not bad. Tuesday morning water comes flowing through Xavier’s campus and eventually stopping and rising by my dorm. I then came to the conclusion that I will be stuck in New Orleans for a while. One by one the dorm lost water pressure, people became unbearable, the dorm smelled like several types of strong odors. My roommate and I were getting prepared to be in our dorm from sometime. Approximately four days after the storm the fire and police department came and took groups of people by boat to the I-10 Bridge.
After I got to the bridge I thought that the buses would be waiting for us and take us straight to wherever we needed to go in order to wash up or better yet get home. That did not happen as I planned, I was sitting out there with my fellow classmates and residents going through different weather changes hour by hour for about 9 hours. Mind you there was no where to go to the bathroom therefore I did not go. As soon as that 9th hour hit, army trucks came to pick me up and take me across a small body of water on the interstate then dropped me off at the other side. After I got dropped off I was waiting there for another 3 hours and the Jessie Jackson came to give an inspiration speech at 10:00pm on Thursday. So we finally get on a bus to go to Southern University were I was told to put my bag on the window and duck because when the buses passed the Superdome people were shooting at it because they found out it wasn’t for them. I finally get to Southern University about 2 hours after leaving New Orleans, were I was able to wash up and get 4 hours of deserved sleep. It was messed up that the university told us while we were going to bed in our cot at 3:00am that we had to leave for find somewhere to go by 8:00am. Luckily I had a free ride to the airport and my credit card willing to pay however much it would cost to get back to New Jersey.
Finally, I got back home 3 hours later where I was tired, sick, and stinky but, I never thought my parents would be so happy to see me in that state. Fortunately I was able to go to Seton Hall University in my home state for a semester, no charge. Now I am back in New Orleans and I am ready to make a difference.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 at 12:44 pm and is filed under Class Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.