I left for Hurricane Katrina 2 days before it hit on the 29th. I was very nervous for this hurricane more than I have ever been. I think I had an intuition that it wouldnt end up good. I left work early on the 27th to pack up my entire room. I called my boyfriend and told him to get off that he was evacuating with me. He didnt want to listen and neither did his family. Needless to say I convinced him to come with me but I couldnt convince his family. My boyfriend thought it was only necessary to pack for 2 days and leave the majority of his stuff at his house. I warned him otherwise but I was mostly just grateful that he agreed to come with me. Ill never forget the moment leaving from his house and looking back on it while reminissing about all the good laughs we had there. I never thought it would be the last glance I would ever have at that memoriful house. Throughout the course of our evacuation we communicated with his family as much as possible. It took a lot of work but finally 6 hours before Katrina hit we convinced his family to finally evacuate. They came to stay at the same place as my family. Again his family left all important and valuable belongings at the house thinking they would be going back in a day or so. Once everyone was setlled and taken care of everything we finally settled to watch the news. On being updated about the damages we were soon to hear of a horrible tragedy that is still hard for my fiance\'s family to discuss today. As we watched all of our cities go under water we werent prepared to see an image of a helicopter over their house which was completely under water. It was the most devastating tragedy ever. The sad part was that his family had just moved into this house and hadnt made it there a whole 3 months before there was nothing left. It was his mothers home that she fell in love with and had to have two and a half months prior to Katrina. The looks on their faces, the disbelief, the devestation it caused this family I will never forget. I can still remember weeks after when they could finally return looking at all of the destroyed pictures and memories that were left behind. We are now in the year 2010 five years later after Katrina and there house still isnt complteely finished. They have gone through hell with insurance companies, FEMA, Roadhome and yet five years later were still slowly trying to rebuild and recieve the money deserved to finish. I have very distinct images of all the horrible things I seen and witnessed when arriving back home to almost nothing.

Citation

“[Untitled],” Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, accessed May 3, 2024, https://hurricanearchive.org/items/show/43193.

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