I had just been at the homecoming dance with my girlfriend after a week of being at a new school. It was the next day we evacuated to Mandeville on a last minute decision because of the increasing strength of the storm. Hurricanes had never been so bad that we would have to go elsewhere until, of course, Katrina. That night we left again for Baton Rouge. We worried through the night while we were kept awake by the torrential winds and rain and lightning and random blackouts. Struggling with the curiosity of what happened at our house we would watch what news we could about our area. Rarely would we see anything on our exact neighborhood, except that it was drowning in 14 feet of water. We were lucky enough to have a second floor to move some things to, but we didn\'t think to move everything, such as our pictures and home videos. No one imagined it would be so bad. Everything on the first floor was in ruins, submerged in putrid water for months, tossed around in ways unimaginable. Random paper and cards were stuck to the ceiling when we finally returned, with dirt and sludge as glue and smeared over everything. Upon the discovery of the ruins of our house, we began the first day of cleanup and salvage, which lasted for years. Since then we\'ve moved to Mandeville and I\'ve lived here ever since having to commute back and forth to my city.