Hurricane Katrina hit the first weekend of my senior year of highschool. I got my senior ring on Thursday, went to the first football game on Friday, got asked to the ring dance on Saturday, and was crammed into the family station wagon with as many of our possessions as we could fit on Sunday. \r\n\r\nMy highschool recieved some flood damage, enough to shut it down for the semester anyway. I spent that semester in Baton Rouge at a tempory transitional night school strictly for New Orleans students. Luckily, the moderat damage to my school was repaired in time to reopen for the spring semester in January.\r\n\r\nIn highschool, I was a member of the marching band. Once we found out that there would, in fact, be a Mardi Gras in 2007, we made preperations to March in three parades: Alla, Krew d\'Etas, and as the lead band in Rex. \r\n\r\nThe first march rehersal was overwhelming. By this time, I had become well aquainted with the devestating effects of that bitch Katrina. Though my school got out lucky, the immediate neighborhood around it did not. Flooded out houses, devestated cars, dead trees and that rotten egg smell littered my daily route to school. I had been exposed to that death for so long that it had become common place and less impressive. That is, until that first rehersal.\r\n\r\nThere we were, one hundred students strong, instruments in hand and marching in crisp, percise unison. We blared festive songs like \"Big Chief\" and \"Bourbon Street Parade\" that echoed through the neighborhood. In previous years, the houses on those streets would have emptied with eldery people, stay at home moms and their kids and yardworkers, taking a break from whatever they were doing to watch the miniature parade. But now, there was nothing. The notes fell on nothing but dead front lawns, broken glass and those spray painted X marks on shutters and doors. But the music sounded so crisp, clean, moving, and passionate. As I marched those streets, and contributed to the small musical mirical, I was overcome by a swelling sense of pride. This was my city, not covered by death but swelling with new life, a spirit unbreakable. It was in that moment that i knew in my heart that New Orleans would undoubtably rise again.\r\n\r\n