It was Saturday, August 27th and a hurricane named Katrina was headed towards the mouth of the Mississippi river. 

Katrina
 A Different Kind of Hurricane 

It was Saturday, August 27, 2005. A hurricane that meteorologist named Katrina was headed towards the mouth of the Mississippi river, a geographical location that my husband and I know well. Both of us were raised and still live in southern Louisiana. We heard the howling winds of hurricanes and saw the destruction that a hurricane can leave behind when we were young and living with our parents. After we married, we always said that we did not want to hear that haunting sound of strong winds again if we had the means and a way to leave, and I was packing while my husband was boarding up our windows and tying down his boat and other things that needed to be picked up around the house. If our home was going to be leveled to the ground, then we would deal with that destruction when we returned. 

No hurricane before had ever made a direct hit on the city of New Orleans in the way that they had always predicted. But, our local new stations kept warning that this hurricane was different. It had an eye wall that had something similar to that of a typhoon, and it was headed for the place that no one wanted to ever see it hit. It would be very close to the Louisiana/Mississippi line, and New Orleans should take every precaution, because it looked by every measure of all the technology that they had, that this could be the one that we had all been talking about for 50 years or more! 

Before packing, I called for reservations at a place in Memphis that we stay, when a threatening hurricane comes our way. I could get a room for three nights-- Sunday, Monday and Tuesday-- but it was one of the larger rooms, because this was the only thing available. Everything else was booked, so I booked the room. 

All day long I packed clothes, scanned baby pictures and saved them on CD’s, and then I would go back and listen to the news for a while. I packed small items that I didn’t want to lose if our area got the eye of the storm. When they predict where the eye will make landfall, it’s not always exact. The weather center is very good with pinpointing the area, but the eye wobbles, and it was too close to call if the eye of the storm wobbled more to the west. Much too close to New Orleans, and too close for us, too!

Our car was full of luggage and other things that we didn’t want to leave behind. The truck we owned was bigger but it burned more gas than our car. We went through the long gas lines of vehicles waiting to fill up already during the aftermath of other hurricanes. We had a good car that could take us further on a tank of gas than our bigger truck, so we decided to take the car. We saw many cars stranded along side of the road. I’m guessing they ran out of gas.

Five in the morning, on Sunday, August 28, 2005, we left for Memphis, Tennessee. Contra flow was in effect the day before at 4:00 pm, and we worried that we would not be able to get on I-55 North, but contra flow worked beautifully! We got on the interstate, but by an alternate route. There was no bumper to bumper traffic and both of the two lanes were flowing in the same direction, always full of traffic until we reached Jackson, Mississippi, where everyone had to get back on the correct lanes. I did call the state police to let them know how pleased we all were with contra flow. This was the first time that we experienced the plan and it worked so well. There was no bumper to bumper traffic, even with over one million people evacuating New Orleans. 

My husband and I were both wondering where the eye of this hurricane was going to hit, but we listened to so much news before we left home that we listened to some of our home Cajun music on CD’s in the car instead of listening to news on the way up to Memphis.

We arrived at our hotel at 2:00 pm Sunday afternoon which was good time for so much traffic on the highways. So many people were there from Louisiana. Many DID evacuate! We all exchanged our stories while we were checking in our luggage, and it felt as though it was a reunion of family instead of people we had never met before. After our cart of memories and luggage was filled and rolled upstairs to our room, we freshened up to go downstairs and have supper. Gathering in the lobby after supper, we met more people from different areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama while we all sat in the lounging area to talk for a while. 

Both of our cell phones were on, and we kept calling home to our neighbors who decided to stay in their home. One of our sons couldn’t leave, because he is manager of a place that is similar to Lowes. He had to be there so that the people of our home town could get the wood and other supplies that they would need to board up their homes for this hurricane. When he returned from work, they had plans to leave, but others told them that the highways were so congested with traffic going to the west with no contra flow, that they decided to turn back. They decided to wait the storm out at his mother in law’s home. They have a bed and breakfast, and the house was big and strong. I wasn’t worried too much. We don’t live in any flood area, but all of us are 40 miles south of New Orleans.

When had talked enough to the other people in the main lobby of the hotel who were all so nice, we decided to go up to our room, shower and listen to more news. The hurricane had taken a turn to the North, and was going to hit the town of Buras, Louisiana. This was in a line with the town of Biloxi, but Buras was going to get hit first. I made a lot more phone calls. We had to get some sleep. We were tired, and we prayed for the people who would be in the eye of the hurricane.

We woke up at 4:00 am. Monday morning. We couldn’t sleep so we put the TV on first, and then we put a pot of coffee on. Our room had a kitchenette and a sitting area along side of our bed. Both of us sat down on the couch to listen to the news. We were still thankful that the city of New Orleans was going to be spared the eye, but the force of this hurricane was something that no one had ever felt before! The eye did go onshore in the evacuated town of Buras at 6:10 am. We watched it go onshore all the while phoning my son and neighbors at home. 

After the worst of the storm passed, we phoned home again. With the cell phones going on and off and not being able to reach some area’s, I finally found out that our house and our whole town had been spared a lot of damage. The biggest damage appeared to be down the bayou and on Grand Isle, but this was closer to where the eye wall came on land. Most of the houses in my home town had shingles missing and a LOT of tree damage. Power lines were down with many poles bent and broken, but we all still had our homes. No electricity, but the roofs were still on the houses.

I listened to the news, and I heard that there was a breach in the levee! We began watching the horrific drama unfold in New Orleans from our hotel room in Memphis. We all knew what would happen if one of the levee’s would break. And, FEMA knew too! They talked and planned what to do if this happened since 1975! Our homes are no where’s near the levee break, and the seeping waters into the city didn’t effect our town at all, but my heart was so broken to see New Orleans, a city that I love to visit, going underwater!

I watched as much as I could take, and then after I saw all of the houses underwater on Fox News, I CRIED and I cried! But they don’t NEED my tears, they need HELP!

Tuesday morning, I tell my husband that help would be coming to these people in New Orleans, Biloxi, and Alabama. That’s what FEMA does. They send immediate help to disaster victims. I cried again. My husband doesn’t like to see me cry, but he knows that if I don’t let out my hurt feelings of the sorrow that I felt for these people that I would smother, and then my heart starts palpitating. SO I cried! 

We left the hotel and ate at a restaurant away from the hotel so that we can get away from being glued to the TV. I wanted to keep updated, but the devastation was so widespread that my nerves were shot and my heart felt so broken, and I wasn’t in their shoes! I was in a very nice air conditioned room with my clothes and my memories. I still had my home back in the country, and no one in my family was harmed or missing. 

Someone told me in the lobby that the Super Dome was a horrible mess. I answered her, “You take 70 people and place them in a 2,500 square foot, 3 bedroom home with 2 bath rooms for 3 days, with no food or water. And, they can’t get out. Then your toilets backup, and your air condition unit breaks in 96 degree weather, and see how long your home will stay clean!” 

That afternoon, I tell my husband that I wanted to leave early the Wednesday morning. We had no electricity at home, so we went grocery shopping and filled the trunk with non perishable foods and a lot of bread for the rest of the family just incase they had no more bread at the stores when we returned home. We also filled up the car with gasoline before dark the Tuesday evening, got some cash out of the ATM, and started packing to come home early in the morning. I wanted to be back on my side of the river before more bad things happened, and we would be stuck on the other side of the river, not being able to come home.
 

We left Memphis for home at 5:00 in the morning. There was no contra flow on the way home, but all of the roads were blocked to go into New Orleans, understandably. We had to go through Baton Rouge to get back home. When I crossed back over the Mississippi, I was so GLAD to be on our side of the river. SO many things were going wrong in New Orleans, that I was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to go back home. And, I kept thinking of all of the people with NO homes to go back to at ALL!

The damage I had was so small compared to New Orleans, Biloxi, and Alabama, that I don’t even want to go there. Our home stayed three days without electricity, but when we got back home the electric power was turned back on just within that hour. When I entered my home with the heat that was in there, I thought of the suffering of the people in the Super Dome and the Convention Center. They had no electricity, no food or water for THREE days now! The city was in a riot, and all I kept wondering was :
 

Where was FEMA ? 
Where was our government?

FEMA got to Florida the day after all of their hurricanes! There WAS a way to get in and out of the city! There WAS a way to get food and water to the people in New Orleans the next day, EVEN after the levee broke! Mississippi and Alabama weren’t getting any food and water either~~!!!!!!!!!!!

The size of the disaster area is compared to the size of the state of Idaho! FEMA is suppose to be trained to DO something immediately after such a disaster !!!!!!!!!!!! They failed miserably, as did our government !!! The military can go in after they have orders from the president. So, their presence there was unseen, because they didn’t have the orders to go and help bring back law and order to the city! 

It’s only after the American public started asking “WHERE is FEMA and our government”, that some action started happening, which makes me wonder if it wasn’t for the media, how long would this suffering have gone on?

I know that the president signed a 10.5 BILLION dollar relief fund-- And I SAW the staged walk in Biloxi! You can NOT just walk UP to the president like the mother and daughter did…………I know this, because when Mr. Bush Sr. came to our town when he was vice president to sign a contract to build Coast Guard boats at one of our largest shipyards here, I know the family that he stayed with. They had to have a RED phone put in with a number that was connected directly to the White House, which I think is a necessity, but none of her family could approach the president without going through the secret service first in her own home! You can NOT just approach the president! SO I know that this walk was well prepared in Biloxi……….

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Let us all pray that we don’t have a terrorist attack of magnitude proportions and then have to depend on FEMA and our government to help the American people, because if they couldn’t get this plan into action right away, then we can all kiss it goodbye--!!
 

I’m still crying over this injustice! But as I said, they don’t NEED my tears. 

They need help, and you can help by making a donation to:

+ The RED CROSS +

The number is:
1-800- HELP NOW

1- 800- 435 - 7669
+ Thank you +
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There was a way to get help to the people in New Orleans. And, Mississippi and Alabama didn’t get help the next day, either! Three DAYS to send some relief to three states.
The whole scene is still a nightmare.
Later, someone will have to explain what went wrong!

These are my own comments and my own opinion that I feel I have to express, because of all the injustice that I watched and I wasn’t even in the city!
I have no regrets in placing my words in this way~!

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As of tonight, 9/15/2005, EVERYONE said that there were mistakes made at ALL levels of government, which is true , so now, while we will never forget the tragic events of Katrina, and we will continue to help our neighbors, we can all be quiet and start rebuilding. Sometimes we have to gives thanks for the things that we don’t have just as much as for the things that we do have.
Everything happens for a reason!

Let''s just watch and see how everything works out. If things don''t work out, there is an election year coming up. Then we can make a noise!

+ Amen and Bright Blessings +
 

I send everyone peace and hope for the coming new beginnings.

I  LOVED to visit  the French Quarters and 
The River Walk
And I LOVE this Blues song about New Orleans
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Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans
 

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
And miss her each night and day
I know I''m not wrong  this feeling''s getting stronger 
The longer I stay away.

Miss the moss-covered vines, the tall sugar pines
Where mockingbirds used to sing
I''d love to see that old lazy Mississippi
Running into the spring

Moonlight along the bayous
Creole tunes that fill the air
I dream about magnolias in June
And I''m wishing that I was there

Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans
When that''s where you left your heart
And there''s one thing more, I miss the one I care for
More than I miss New Orleans
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