I remember the very first time I actually realized what had happened down in New Orleans. I had heard that there was a hurricane down there but didn\'t think too much about it, \"hurricanes happen all the time\". And my team had a tennis match that day and I really needed to focus. \r\n\r\nWhen I got back to my car, I looked at my phone and saw 6 missed calls. I looked who called and all of them were from my family in Canada. I had also received about 3 text messages also from family in Canada and the Philippines. In my head I was thinking what they could have wanted or needed. The general message in the text was basically asking if my family was ok and if any of us were hurt. Then I called my nieces and cousins in Canada and they sounded relieved to hear from me. They had heard there was an extremely devastating hurricane that hit the US somewhere and they weren\'t sure if we were affected at all. I reassured them that everything was fine in Virginia and not to worry. I thought that they were just worried because they don\'t really live near the ocean or anything and hurricanes are not a normal occurence up there. I told them \"hurricanes happen all the time\". It was nothing to worry about.\r\n\r\nWhen I got home, my dad was watching the news about the hurricane so I sat down and watched with him. I looked at the devastation that the hurricane had caused and felt so sorry for all of the people who had lost their houses. They had to rebuild basically their entire lives over again. But again I thought to myself \"hurricanes happen all the time\". People have survived hurricanes before and were able to go on with their lives. So I said a prayer for those who were lost and who had lost something.\r\n\r\nIt wasn\'t until the next at school did I realize just how catastrophic this hurricane actually was. It was no ordinary hurricane. There were people around crying because they had family down in Louisiana who they were not able to get a hold of. They feared the worst as they kept trying to text and call them. Then, over the morning announcements, which was usually screamed over the PA system by an overly energetic cheerleader, was read by our principal very solemnly. He announced that we would have a Mass that day to pray for those affected by this terrible hurricane. It was at that moment that I realized just how big this was. In all my years there we had never had any sort of service for people in hurricanes. We had prayed for them but never a full on Mass for them. At lunch, someone had already started collecting money because her cousin had lost her house in the hurricane and she wanted to help her right away.\r\n\r\nOver the next couple of weeks, there were many collections taken and prayer services for those who had lost their lives, homes, and loved ones. I watched many stories on the news, heard so many stories on the radio, read so much about it over the internet, and seen countless videos of people who experienced it. One video I remember was an elderly man trying to drive out of town to go stay with family. A man was video taping the road because it was completely flooded. However, the elderly man did not realize it was flooded because the water blended in with the road. He drove straight into the wall of water but was saved by the man video taping. Even when the storm was actually over, there were still so many hazards that could take the lives of any of these people. I felt awful constantly thinking \"hurricanes happen all the time\". This was no ordinary storm. Even a year later, people still talk about what happened down there in Louisiana and won\'t forget about it for years to come, including me.