~Part One~

~Prologue~

The TV and radio stations kept talking about IT.  People I ran into or saw or knew kept talking about IT.  I couldn't escape the fact that a monster hurricane was headed in our general direction; yet the weather belied that very fact: it was partly sunny with puffy, fluffy white clouds; but it was humid as all get out, the type of humidity where one breaks out into a sweat not even five minutes after stepping out of a cold shower or from inside.

The oldtimers kept saying that something like this was bound to happen.  The younger generation (such as my mom, pop, my siblings, and myself) kept denying it, saying that it was a fluke, that nothing like this would never happen: the levees that held flood waters back from our beloved New Orleans, Louisiana, were still in good working order.  

We continued to live our lives as we normally did, meaning us kids.  The adults did take precautions; it was unnerving to see adults boarding up their windows and putting up their belongings in case this storm did come.

We kids joked around, saying that Katrina was nothing more than a big windstorm who would be in and out, with nothing more than several hours of heavy winds and high winds; then she would blow through, and it would be all over.  She was more bark than bite in our young jaded minds.

Little did we know the misery and trauma that this lady called Katrina would bring to us.

~To be continued.~