Well I guess my story kind of starts off like everyone else who evacuated for Katrina. I mean we have had alot of “hurricane scares” in the past so my family and I just thought we were going to have a little vacation for a couple days and then come back to our normal lives. My family and I evacuated to McComb, Mississippi where we stayed with my grandmother during the hurricane. Sure the lights went off, but my family and I still were not thinking that it would be as bad as it was in Louisiana. After the storm passed, we still didn’t have any lights and the cellphones were not working…well at least not Sprint. Days and days went by without no communication of what was happening in Louisiana. We heard all of the horror stories, but our house never got flooded so we still weren’t too worried about it. I think it set in for me when they were not letting people go into Louisiana. “What’s so bad there that we can’t see,” I asked myself. We still didn’t have electricity by my grandmother’s house so we had to listen to radio of what was going on. Finally we got the all clear to go back to Louisiana. When I opened the door to my house I couldn’t believe my eyes. Our walls were covered with mold and the high water lines were wrapped around all of our walls. My room got hit the hardest. Half of the ceiling fell in so I wasn’t even able to get to the other side of my room. Also my bookselves that I had books on from when I was little were cracked in half. Since my closet was in another room I was able to get the majority of my clothes out and some pictures. I left the house in tears, but still thanking God that I had a house to go back to. I attended school in Mississippi for a short period of time, and then I was able to go back to my high school when we moved back. We were able to stay in a little cottage while I home was getting redone. It had a kitchen, bathroom, and I was able to have a bedroom by myself. Eventhough I was upset at the condtion of my house, I was still thankful that I had a house to go back to. My aunt and uncle lived in New Orleans East before the storm. My aunt and my cousins left for the hurricane, but my uncle didn’t think it was gonna be thast bad so he wanted to ride out the storm. To make a long story short, my uncle floated around on a sofa in his house for a couple days and then was able to swim out so someone could save him. My uncle still really doesn’t like to go outside of the house even living in Natchez, Mississippi now. Hurricane Katrina took an emotional toll on him. I am back in my actual house now and thank God for my home, but most importantly my family and friends. I didn’t realize how much I would miss them when everyone was displaced. Even though all of my friends didn’t come back to Louisiana after the storm, we still keep in touch. I learned a valuable lesson from Hurricane Katrina we should be thankful for what we have because it all could be gone in an instant. Also having good relationships with family and friends is essential because, eventhough it is cliche’, time is short.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Week 01: Background. 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.