Who: Harter March\r\nWhat: Hurricane Katrina\r\nWhen: August 27 - 31 2005\r\nWhere: New Orleans \r\n\r\nSaturday, August 27th was a fairly calm day for me honestly. A hurricane was coming but thats nothing new, and it had been a little while since we had one proper anyways. I always have enjoyed them somewhat. You get the best weather and we were looking to get a Category 3, or maybe a weak 4 so no worries. I had stayed for bigger so this was of little concern to me. I did jokingly tell my father \"If [Katrina] hits category 5 I am leaving you behind.\" He was refusing to evacuate which I can\'t say I blame him for. We really had no where else to go so there was little choice for us anyways. We simply couldn\'t afford to go anywhere to evacuate and the closest family was hundreds of miles away and us with barely enough to try and stock up for food before the storm. No car even likely to make it half as far as we needed to go either.\r\n\r\nSunday morning comes and all my friends are gone, so I was stuck at that point as well for a Category 5. That was a bit more than I expected. A few of my friends called and all seemed extremely worried. One even can be quoted as saying \"Well it has been nice knowing you.\" I can\'t say I was overly scared though. I figured we were in a decent spot (well I live next to a levee but eh) and the house was fairly sturdy so we should be good. Worse case scenario we break into the neighbor\'s house and call it good. There was a lot of doom and gloom weather reports but the city has suffered worse in the past so I ignored them. Every hurricane is about to wipe us off the face of the planet seemingly so this one was built up no different for me. Sunday went on without much event. Power went out at some point during the night and I decided to just get some sleep.\r\n\r\nNow Monday morning proved the most interesting. Woke up during the initial part of it and realzied there was too much noise to get back to sleep. That would make this a long day indeed. Lots of wind and rain but nothing special yet. I went and got a candle and did some reading. That is the real annoying part of staying for a hurricane. No power makes it so hard to pass the time. But thats usually only lasts for a day or two so patience would win out and I would get a fun story out of this. The news reports were fairly useless for the first part of it so I only listened to it for about 10 minutes every hour or so. Less if I turned it on when they were actually relaying any useful information. Eventually I got brave and opened up a side door to see what was going on. The wind was blowing paralel so I wasn\'t so worried.\r\n\r\nNow, normally what you see in the movies for a hurricane is way worse than what it is really like. The trees don\'t bend that far and the heavy objects are not so easily displaced. They really are a lot more tame than most people realize. Given even the weakest can destroy homes and kill people, but that is honestly not what happens to the majority of people affected. This was completely different than normal though. This was a scene out of hollywood. It was completely unreal. Trees touching the ground at points. I was very impressed. I got some nice action shots on my camera. The house was holding very steady so this was a great source of amusment for my family. I was tempted to go outside but 100mph winds just shouldn\'t be tested. We did have something fly into our laundry room, but it didn\'t make it all the way through the wall. A few minor roof leaks and that was the all the damage we took.\r\n\r\nThe best part of a hurricane is usually checking the damage afterwards. As I said there are very few homes utterly destroyed, but alot of uprooted trees and downed power poles. This always makes for a fun trip. There were at least 3 good sized oak trees down on my street completely blocking it off from traffic and of course every power line down with them. A few trees were still standing though. One of them was twisted off. Not snapped, not struck by lightning, but twisted. There was a big tanker stranded on top of the levee at one spot as well. I imagine it is still there unless the took it apart already. There was no way it was getting moved off though. All and all it was like any other hurricane only a bit bigger in scale at this point.\r\n\r\nTuesday is when things took a weird turn. There was a shark on a major street for starters. Plus the looting had started which is more than slightly abnormal. Mostly it was grocery stores being broken into. The hardware store got slightly looted as well but really not that badly. Mostly people were realizing this was going to be worse than previously and desperatly wanted extra goods. There was no police response however. They seemed content to let everything happen as it was happening in a lot of places. The Wal-mart looting was being controlled but other than that they did very little. The power company also decided to accomplish nothing as well. There was attempt to restore anything, but there were promises of federal help coming. The CNN reporters made it first...\r\n\r\nWednessday and still nothing. Things were degenrating but hardly to the level that was reported. There was some violence, I won\'t lie, but not half as much as got reported. No real roaming gangs of looters everywhere nor any real large amount of violence. I know of one person who had his van stolen. Most likely as a way to get out as there was still no response at all. The Super Dome was also not a play ground for the murderers and rapists. I believe there was no confirmed reports of any of those activities there. The looting was strictly buisnesses and homes with some personal assaults but not that many. I stress this because I want to be clear that the city never reached the level of chaos reported. I slept as well as could be expected in 90 degree weather. We still had water so we had nice cold showers for some relief. Promises of lots of aid coming were still thrown around and of how glorious it would be when they same, but they sure took their sweet time coming. There was days of warning ahead of this and a solid day of knowing it would be a moving catastrophe and nothing. The governor at one point decided she needed another 24 hours to make a decision on whether or not to send in the national guard immediatly under federal control. Twenty four hours and then she rejected the proposal.\r\n\r\nThursday came and we decided to leave. No where really to go, but there was no food, no drinkable water, and no aid of any sort forth coming. I know of some that left a good bit before that actually so plenty of ways into or out of the city. There was a lot of finger pointing and an irrate mayor on the news for entertainment but other than that there seemed no care for our plight. We had any number of roads open on the west bank as well. No flooding at all either (which is NOT because we are higher up and it IS because the levee burst on the other side of the river) and you could get anywhere in Algiers, and most of Jefferson parish. Even in the French Quarter there was a bar that never closed. Hardly a situation beyond recorey. Infact just a few trucks with water and food would have saved the entire thing at any point. But there was nothing for us. With no ice and no power there was no chance to keep goods from spoiling. Even stocking up as much as we could the food was getting to the point where you have to wonder if you are hungry enough to eat what you have left.\r\n\r\nAs we drove away from the reports became worse and worse. It was honestly laughable how long people expeted us to take to drain the city. 6 months? We have a pumping system designed to drain the city of water. that is the only reason parts of it aren\'t still swamp. Somewhere in northern Louisiana (it\'s all a blur at this point) 2 days after we left we came across some relief workers suppsoedly heading down to New Orleans. We had no trouble at all getting out but apparently there was no chance of getting in? The news vans we saw going in beg to differ. A week after the hurricane there was still nothing happening. 1 week with no power, water for parts of the city, or anything else of use. No phone lines so you were on your own for emergencies. You might have been able to get a call out on a cell phone, but in most cases absolutly not. I know a few people who stuck it out through it all. Mostly they either lived alone or with one other person so food wasn\'t much of an issue. They had very little help through it all as well. Not until 2 weeks after the storm did they get any kind of help at all. It still amazes me when I think about it. A category 5 hurricane comes down on the city and it survives fairly admirably, but what really kills it and send it into chaos and almost desroy it is the lack of help and aid given by it\'s own government. Without my extended family I would have been stranded with none of the basic necesities of life. It took a fair bit of money to get out of there as well what with the needing to eat and find places to stay with the only free option being shelters that were always full and never took pets. I refused to leave my dogs to die a slow and horrid death so that was not an option. Forgive me for ranting, but that is how it will always be remembered by me.\r\n\r\nI was the first to come back in my family. Our house was mostly the way we had left it and life had been restored to the city. There was power and phones and the water was drinkable. There was a fun eviction notice given to us shortly after I came back. We have a very understanding land lady. This might seem irrelevant to you, but really it seems the heart of the topic to me. The hurricane was not all that devastating compared to how people reacted (or failed to) afterwards. \r\nOriginally posted on the Memory Archive: http://www.memoryarchive.org/en/Hurrican_Katrina%2C_August_29%2C_2005%2C_by_Harter