I was in Orange Texas with my two toddlers when Rita worked her way over to us. On the advice of some family memebers I decided to evacuate on September 22, 2005. We left around 8am and drove for nearly 10 hours and covered a distance of roughly 250 miles. Traffic was bumber to bumber for miles and miles of back roads that flow in and out of pine forrest and tiny texas towns. It was hot and humid and I couldnt run my air conditioning for fear of overheating my van. Creeping slowly north on highway 87 with my 2 kids and 3 dogs was a nightmare, but we eventually made it to Linden Texas. We camped out in an old farm house for the next few days waiting for the storm to hit and pass and getting ready to get back to life. It didnt exactly work out that way though. The storm slammed into the coast and ripped through my town. We had virtually no information about how Orange weathered, no media coverage was provided. My uncle was able to get back into Orange two days after the storm and he reported on everyones homes. Eventually he made it to my house. Unfortantly the news was not good. A massive pine tree, rougly 75 to 100 ft tall uprooted and fell through my house, bi-secting the front half of the house from the back half. On September 30th I had to travel back to my house to meet with a FEMA rep. Traveling back I will never forget the massive fields of pines just snapped in half like toothpicks. Debri was everywhere, garbage, homes, cars destoyed and scattered. Orange was unrecgonizable. Highways where shut down to just one or two lanes, and my street was a parking lot for untility trucks. I had three trucks parked on my front yard alone. I wanted to scream, cry and vomit all at once when I saw my house crushed under the massive pine. The tree fell through my sons bedroom window and the water and wind ruined everything the tree missed. I had squirels and birds and the neighbors cats all living in my now exposed house. Overwhelmed is an understatement when describing the emotions I felt at the moment. I met with the FEMA guy, he was all buisness and not much of a sympathetic ear, I can\'t exactly blame him though. He just got out of New Orleans and now he had to deal with the b.s. all over again. We couldn\'t live in the house so back to Linden we went. We lived in Linden for the next 2 weeks. After 2 weeks power was restored to my grandmother-in-laws house. We moved in with her and there we lived for the next 5 months. Little by little, fight by fight, we got our insurance to give us money. Dealing with the insurance, FEMA, contractors and the bank that holds our mortage was difficult, disapointing and often maddening. My husband came home after being in Korea for nearly 2 years and we worked hard and long to get back into our house. We are back home, happy that we have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. Orange is so different though, the beautiful, mature oak trees are all gone. The lovely old buildings, homes, and churches have been damage and destroyed and might not ever come back. And here we are just weeks away from the new season, and facing the prospect that we might be doing this all over again. I might be writing another story here in about a year, lets hope not though.