The week before Katrina was my first week of college. I was excited to be out of high school and not living with my parents (though they owned the house i was living in) My sister and I contemplated evacuating, but we decided it would be nice to visit our parents; plus we were in dire need of clean clothes since our dryer broke a week before the hurricane. We both grabbed our laundry basket filled with dirty clothes, a pillow, and our two dogs, packed her Dodge neon( i lost \r\nthe keys to my car the Wednesday before the hurricane) and headed to Tennessee to see our MOther and Father. They own a lovely house in a military community, but it was quite small being that the whole family was there. All together there was 9 adults, 3 children and 3 dogs in a 3 bedroom 1 bathroom house. When we found out how bad the devastation was,\r\nI could not stop crying. Once we were able to come back, my oldest brother and I came down to see his house in slidell and my parents house on the westbank. Or first stop in slidell was not bad. His house had nothing wrong with it. My spirits were pretty high, expecting the same. I heard the Westbank was very lucky when it came to damage. I wish I could say it was completely true. When we turned to corner onto my street, the first thing i saw was a tree limb sitting on the edge of our \r\ngarage, partially on top of my mustang.\"wow i got really lucky, had it not been for the gutter holding up the corner of the roof, the limb would have crushed my car\" was what i was thinking it the midst of crying, yet again. We opened the door to the House, nothing was wrong. I was getting very excited! Even our refrigerator was fine, no mold! We did get some water in our family room, which is a step down from he rest of the house, but the room was empty beforehand so nothing except Walls were damaged, minor damage compared to the rest of New Orleans. Then I went upstairs. I debated on which door to open first, but i decided mine would be last. I opened the computer room, nothing. I peaked inside the spare bedroom, looked perfect!. I opened my sister\'s room and everything was dry as could be. We were really lucky! Then I opened my door..\r\nmy luck ran out. The roof above my room had blown off, the ceiling collapsed and was laying all over my bed and on my floor. I couldn\'t take it I broke down. a few things were salvageable but not enough for me. We rented a trailer, loaded my car on it and left back to Tennessee. Once I received FEMA money I put it all into my mustang so i could make the ten hour drive back home a safe one. Once i got home I took my car to sate farm to have them inspect it. They informed me it had water in the back seat and had to be totaled out, even though it was drive able. The end result, My family lost nothing and I lost everything.

Citation

“[Untitled],” Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, accessed November 24, 2024, https://hurricanearchive.org/items/show/31574.