Prior to the hurricane I had recently joined a kickball league. The Kickball of the Crescent City, or KOCC, was composed of 8 teams from maybe 3 bars. My team, the Beat-Alls, was a Beatles-themed team playing out of Finn McCool\'s. Regardless of team association, the entire league hung out together at the various bars, houses of players, etc. It was a large group of people. A few of us were planning our Halloween costumes leading up to the evacuation. The Saturday preceding, I was at my friend\'s house with about 6 other people. We were cutting and sewing our Quidditch uniforms; we were gonna be the Gryffindor and Slytherin quidditch teams from Harry Potter.\r\n\r\nAs we sat around measuring, pinning and cutting, the conversation drifted towards the hurricane bearing down on the city. I had not even heard about it, thus I was surprised when people discussed the locations of the various hurricane parties. I decided that I would evvacuate with my mother and youngest sister, since they otherwise had no one with them to assist in the evacuation. As our group disbanded, we talked about the next time we would see each other, assuming one and all that it would be sooner than it turned out to be. \r\n\r\nI logged onto the internet and pulled up a weather map and saw a gigantic hurricane just inches from my city! I called my mom and arranged a time for us to evacuate. I packed some things and headed to Slidell. The contraflow was in effect, so I had difficulty getting off I-10 onto I-12 to head to her house. I had to exit and take Highway 11 back into Louisiana, from Mississippi. I slept at my mom\'s house that night and early Sunday morning we packed up and left, heading to her youngest sister\'s house in Sweeny, TX. As my mom and sister slept in the car while I drove us to Texas, I was grateful we left so early. I hit traffic, to be sure, but I could tell it was only getting worse.\r\n\r\nThe traffic got much worse by the time we crossed the Sabine River into Texas, but I noticed the service road running alongside the interstate and, after some precision driving, managed to bypass the bumper-to-bumper traffic for many miles heading into Houston. We eventually made it to Sweeny, some 12 or so hours later. It was dark out and the surrounding countryside poorly lit. The directions involved long distances and unmarked streets, or streets called country roads. Landmarks included fields and gas stations. When we arrived, exhausted from the drive, we unloaded and set up at my aunt\'s house in this one-horse town called Sweeny. \r\n\r\nThe next morning, at a nearby burger joint, while eating our breakfast/lunch, we saw on the nearby television video of a flooded New Orleans. The hurricane had made landfall and the levees were breached. The news report indicated that the hurricane, Katrina as I would henceforth be calling it, hit near my father\'s house in Mississippi. I was grateful that he was not in Bay St. Louis at the time, but I noticed that the path of the eye went directly over a tiny town he was in, with my grandparents. Of course, I could not reach anyone by telephone. My other sister was in the National Guard and was likewise unavailable. I was grateful we escaped the wrath of Katrina, but was terrified that the rest of my family had not. \r\n\r\nOn top of this, the city was inundated and, to the best of my knowledge, gone forever. People were being evacuated from rooftops, by boat and helicopter. I could not get in touch with anyone. Thankfully the KOCC message board was up and through that website, the entire league remained in contact. We all posted where we were and discovered that a small handful of us was holed up in the city! The few text messages that got out of the city told us that our friends were ok, but that many troubling things - besides the flooding - were taking place in the city. Violence was escalating. It was exhausting and I don\'t believe sleep came easily to any of us.\r\n\r\nEventually, word came that another hurricane, Rita, was bearing down on Texas. Landfall predictions included Sweeny, so we evacuated again, this time with my aunt and two cousins. The two carloads were diverted along a contraflow like system in the wrong direction for hours. When we finally turned around, we stopped to get our bearings and decide where we were going. Our dog, Chocolate, took this opportunity to escape one of the cars and was hit and killed on the interstate we were stopped on. I still cry thinking about her. \r\n\r\nHours later, my aunt\'s car just quit and we all piled into the SUV my sister lent us for the evacuation. 6 people, less one loving and cute dog, and all of our supplies, crammed into a vehicle in bumper-to-bumper traffic. As tempers reached a breaking point, blame went around for many things I do not remember. Gas stations were closed, having run out of gas! We barely coasted to the town we were heading towards. Conway, the home of two of my other cousins. We stayed in a tiny, 2-bedroom house for three days, trying to locate food, water and gas. The evacuation had caused a serious dearth of all things necessary for life. \r\n\r\nEventually, we returned to Sweeny and my sister enrolled in school. I prepared to return to the city to remove whatever important belongings I might be able to salvage. Tension was high in the tiny house in Sweeny, so when the OK came that Louisiana residents could return, we hitched a trailer and headed back. \r\n\r\nMy family was lucky for the most part. My mom\'s house wasn\'t flooded, being on high ground on the North shore. My apartment was on the second floor uptown, so I suffered a broken window only. The landlord had already replaced the refrigerator, so there was no nauseating smell of putrefaction. Unfortunately, my dad\'s house in Bay St. Louis was devastated. Granted, only the ground floor flooded; however, the insurance only covered a few thousand dollars worth of damage TO THE ROOF, because the majority of the damage was flood related. He eventually lost the house, being unable to affect repairs.\r\n\r\nI will say that one good thing did result from my hurricane experience: my future fiancee was relocated to New Orleans to help her company rebuild its clientele. The temporary job I got at a bar in the Quarter was the only place she knew to get food after the city\'s curfew closed other businesses. We were left running because the police and National Guardsmen needed food too. If it wasn\'t for the hurricane, I never would have met her. I probably would not have returned to UNO to continue my education either: this I did because she had a degree from LSU and I felt like I needed to deserve her. So here I am, almost graduated, with less than 6 months left of my undergraduate study left; and I\'m about to be married. \r\n\r\nI know the hurricane was devastating: countless lives were lost, homes destroyed and families displaced indefinitely. However, there was, for me at least, a silver lining. I was able to start my life over again, in the city I loved. Hopefully, I\'ll do better this time.\r\n